Top Gear's Old Car Destruction Habit Got Way Out Of Hand
Earlier in the week CT Editor Matt posted a list of five cars that Top Gear used as cheap beaters during features for the show. Think BMW 635csi, Alfa Romeo 75, Jag XJS V12 and so on. Every single one of them ended up either totally smashed up or just broken enough to warrant being sent to a sweaty makeshift museum in southern England to rot.
The more I think about it, the angrier this makes me. As good as Top Gear was, is a TV show really important enough to get away with destroying so many really awesome old cars that could have been salvaged, repaired, cherished and kept alive?
Anything with a Maserati badge should be more or less sacred, as long as it’s not a Saxo with a Maser badge on it. Yes, the BiTurbo was a bit questionable at the time, but just like we always knew that good 996-era 911s would eventually get expensive, even the BiTurbo has come full circle. Top Gear dropped a skip on one. FFS.
Fair enough, plenty of the wrecks in the cheap car challenges involved cars that nobody really wants to pay to repair. That’s fine. But when it comes to the likes of the Porsche 928 from the Patagonia Special, that car would have been better off kept in the UK and restored. And then used, taken to shows and shared on forums.
That 928 was left there to be destroyed by Argentinian vandals, but don’t forget Clarkson’s prior modifications had ruined it long before that. The same goes for James’ once-awesome Lotus Esprit. That could have been turned into a prized possession for someone like us. Imagine that project thread on CT, following a dedicated owner as he or she breathes new life into an absolute classic. Wilfully driving them to their deaths is just wrong.
Even the Nova SRi and VW Golf GTi from the 80s hot hatch feature were far too good to abuse the way the show did. I can’t be alone in feeling a pang of anger when cars I’d have loved to have seen restored get thrown away.
The reason I’m so pissed at this is that some of these cars are getting really rare, and all of a sudden there’s a panicked realisation that there just aren’t that many really tidy examples of old Alfas, classic Land Cruisers, early VW-era Audis and the like.
If a car doesn’t even make it into the manufacturer’s own museum, or at least the museum’s storage warehouses that keep the extra stuff on standby, it’s probably a fair bet that no one actually cares. But that’s not the case with far too many of these cars.
Clarkson’s Maserati Merak was a prime example. In the episode where the trio had to buy a supercar each for less than £10,000, the orang-utan mercilessly kept on pushing the V6 motor until it eventually ate itself and spat its own insides out of its exhausts. That can’t be right. A good right-hand drive one will now fetch more than £50,000 in the UK, and while the one Clarkson bought wasn’t exactly a good one, someone could have made it that way.
Maybe the average man or woman on the street - who likes checking texts while driving, doesn’t flinch when kerbing wheels and gets their car washed once a year at the local machine - quite enjoys seeing old cars get destroyed. I don’t; not when there are so few of some of these models left. Here’s hoping new new new Top Gear doesn’t go down the same route - the new team have thankfully avoided the trope so far, but we’ll have to wait and see if Clarkson, Hammond and May get up to the same classic car destruction in The Grand Tour.
Leave the old classics to the enthusiasts – even the ones that aren’t quite classics yet.
Comments
Cars from the Patagonia special aside, thy often buy the best car they can in their price bracket and leads them to buying poor condition or neglected cars which will end up in the scrap heap anyway.
Maybe they trash nice cars, but if the car is going to die anyway at least they’ve done something to raise awareness about them. Just think, how many times have you watched a top gear challenge then gone to look up the price of those cars? (I certainly do). A lot of other people do too, who then buy them and put money into owning and restoring them.
It’s not like they went out of there way to destroy rare cars. When they did the shows, the cars weren’t as rare as they are now. My mum used to have a vauxhall nova, I’ll be honest. I never liked it and was glad when it got scrapped. The mk3 ford escort xr3 that came after though. Now that I enjoyed….. Alot
Compared to rare expensive cars that get destroyed in films like the Fast and the Furios saga this is nothing. Look how many awesome JDM and muscle cars and even supercars get destroyed there. It’s all for your entertainment ;)
a lot of those are CG, custom-built replicas, or both. the NFS movie, the koenigsegg was a replica built from the ground up and finished with CG
Meraks, Urracos etc are much rarer than any Fn’F car. Less than 2000 Meraks and about 500 Uraccos had been produced. Better destroy a gullwing 300SL, about 5000 have been produced .
Not only fast and the furious but also transformers, 007 and every movies and tv shows
It aches me to see such destruction from my beloved trio as well, but you are missing a point. Those cars were not rare at the time and just like an old beater on a field near your house, they had the same chances of rising in value. Same thing happened with the Dodge Charger and the Dukes of Hazzard (more than 1000 yes that is a correct amount of zeros, prime examples of 383 V8 powered chargers were mercilessly destroyed) yet no one bats an eye, and that’s because at the time those cars sold for nothing. It wasn’t right but if the world understands that they can’t blame the Dukes’ directors for smashing those cars because simply their values were on the low then we can’t blame top gear for smashing any kind of current classic at a time they were cheap, no matter how wrong that might sound.
If anything… Top Gear helped each and every one of the cars they destroyed. By taking out a really bad example, showing the charm of the car and taking one out of the equation which inevitably increases the value of all the others…
So… stop crying. Good article though for starting a discussion about the sanctity of old vehicles.
Their money, their sht. What’s wrong with poeple.
What bothers me with this post, and general with this whole car community is:
Its THEIR car! If they choose to destroy it so what? Who are any of you, to judge what others do with their own possesions?
So what if somebody puts on a bodykit on an 90ps volkswagen? It is their car!
Im so tired of this community constantly bashing on others, for doing what they want.
So what if somebody is a ricer? He put the effort and work into his car, to make it the way he likes it!
We dont get to judge when somebody puts “unpopular” rims/colors/mods on his car.
Cars are our passion, they should bring us closer.
Amen.
Also, the producers chose most of their cars.
Only the budget cars are theirs.
That is the truest thing i have heard in a long time..
It’s just wrong to crash a rare car like a Maserati Merak, less than 2000 were made.
What if a weird billionaire decides to buy all existing supras and crash them, do you also approve this ?
This article isn’t about bad mods, its about wasting good cars
I hope they didnt plan burning that furai 🤔
I actually want to see more car get destroyed with that 2+ million dollar opening bit price tag of theirs.
They were only putting junkyard cards on the road for a few days then send them back…get over it