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Hmmmm
Looks as though there will be a US version of the worlds greatest motoring porn show. Link here Reuters

So are they going to come to the UK, have to buy a car each for £1000 and try and get shot by locals in Norfolk and eat road kill off the A43?

i hold out very little hope that this will be watchable. tanner foust is a douchebag, and with a few regional exceptions, american car culture is so juvenile it makes clarkson look reserved and level-headed.

Americans struggle with sarcastic humour so I can't see this working.

No offense

It will suck, like 99% of American TV.

But I must be one of the few Americans who can be sarcastic. One of my team mates told me I needed to use sarcasm tags on my emails for clarity. I told her she was the [sarcasm] best team mate I had ever worked with [/sarcasm]

Interesting, they tried 5th Gear a while back. I think most of the charm of the Brit version is the host chemistry. Interested to see how this will go.

Imagine Ice Road Truckers (History Channel's biggest hit) crossed with Pinks with a little Bullrun mixed in.

I'm sure it'll bounce between muscle cars and the import drift scene. Basically cars that the Original Top Gear would make fun of.

American humor can be great, but not with this sort of thing. Everything great about that show is driven by the presenters (pun intended).

These 3 personalities seem quite dry:
"comedian" and small time TV star Adam Ferrara - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GhOEhCEW-0
Suck!

stunt driver Tanner Foust - http://tannerfoust.com/
Ok - well he might make a good Stig, but they'll probably have to let him speak.

and racing analyst Rutledge Wood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutledge_Wood
Great - a NASCAR analyst. But Wikipedia says he and his wife have a Boxer - that's kind of cool. Oh wait, it's a dog not a flat-6 engined sportscar. Boo!

They try to tailor the show to a US audience, which will ruin it. I agree with the fact that it is the hosts of Top Gear that make the show. Three slotted for the US show do not look promising. Of course they had to get a guy with NASCAR connections, then throw in the X-games guy, and Ferrara (he better be a "car guy") not exceptionally funny. Damn thing will probably end nothing more than an extention of NASCAR Raceday.

ferrara is the type of comic that has a few good bits hidden amongst a lot of snoozers. he did a comedy central half-hour special once that was decent, but that's about it.

(04-21-2010 12:58 PM)LappedTraffic Wrote: [ -> ]It will suck, like 99% of American TV.

But I must be one of the few Americans who can be sarcastic. One of my team mates told me I needed to use sarcasm tags on my emails for clarity. I told her she was the [sarcasm] best team mate I had ever worked with [/sarcasm]

The other Americans who do use it well have a podcast where they talk about F1 and related motorsport issues. So you're not entirely alone.

I think it's that rare example of American sarcasm that results in so many listeners being from Australia, New Zealand and the UK who are famously sarcastic.

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The Australian version of Top Gear was a mega-flop. It was cringe-inducing. I hope it wasn't exported to any other TV audiences. We're not really like that.

I think the Aussie Top gear was exported here, as I saw it on chinese filesharing site, tudou.com. It had Chinese subtitles.

I'm not a fan either, but it's not the format or theme that makes top gear. It's the hosts. so, I don't see this going well. I can see why a non english speaking country would localize something like this, but a country like America or Australia? They review aussie and yank cars too. Usually they just drive around super cars that are available anywhere to the person with money, or they do stupid stunts.

i don't get it at all. we get top gear on bbcamerica. why would we want a knock-off also?

(04-22-2010 11:32 AM)frankdouglason Wrote: [ -> ]i don't get it at all. we get top gear on bbcamerica. why would we want a knock-off also?

My guess is to appeal to a wider audience by tailoring it to generalized American likes. I see it being like Nitro Circus in cars.

nitro circus is a different animal. with the exception of tommy (who's there to crash), those people are very skilled and do amazing things.

foust is the only person on the american top gear crew who could do anything like what nitro circus does. i'm expecting a bigger version of supercars exposed, which was a disastrously underwhelming show.

It's gonna suck.

OK... the beeb is supported by taxes which makes no commercial advertising... I'm not aware of any of the networks or standard cable channels in the US working on this business model, so how the hell will they sell advertising space to their largest prospective ad clients when they are bashing their cars on review every week... That will make the show fake... if Jezza drives a bad Porsche, he says so... if the Audi that Hamster is thrashing around the aerodrome track is horrendous because the over-steer kills it, he says so... This project will fail...

(04-22-2010 11:24 PM)maltadawes Wrote: [ -> ]OK... the beeb is supported by taxes which makes no commercial advertising... I'm not aware of any of the networks or standard cable channels in the US working on this business model, so how the hell will they sell advertising space to their largest prospective ad clients when they are bashing their cars on review every week... That will make the show fake... if Jezza drives a bad Porsche, he says so... if the Audi that Hamster is thrashing around the aerodrome track is horrendous because the over-steer kills it, he says so... This project will fail...

i don't buy that. car magazines are ad-supported. are those reviews fake?

(04-22-2010 11:35 PM)frankdouglason Wrote: [ -> ]i don't buy that. car magazines are ad-supported. are those reviews fake?

buy it or not, advertising sales drive what shows stay on the air in this country, period. No deniro to the network, no show on the schedule the next season (or halfway through the season)... Unless you are the guy that they originally wanted for the Top Gear US bit, but since he's moved back to his own time slot I guess being Jay is an exception to the no advertising sales rule...

This will not be the sole reason the show flops, but no advertising income will sure contribute... sure, the presenters will not help either, and the unlimited channel choice that most cable and satellite companies offer won't help a "new" show either... This is a niche format show that has become successful because of a number of factors, and the openness of the presenters to present their own opinions is part of it. Having them stifled by the producers because they need the ad dollars will not make them huge...

How the hell can you do a Top Gear Challenge of let's say three GT cars racing across the Smoky Mountains, and one of them has to be the worse car compared to the others, and how does the network sales folks encourage the manufacturer of that loosing car to advertise with the show if their flagship car just lost out to two other manufacturers??? How does that work...??? it doesn't...

Sorry that you don't buy this, but that is what will happen...

(04-23-2010 12:18 AM)maltadawes Wrote: [ -> ]How the hell can you do a Top Gear Challenge of let's say three GT cars racing across the Smoky Mountains, and one of them has to be the worse car compared to the others, and how does the network sales folks encourage the manufacturer of that loosing car to advertise with the show if their flagship car just lost out to two other manufacturers??? How does that work...???

how does it work when car and driver magazine does it? i had a three sentence post and you clearly only read the first one. i know it's fun to just rant your opinion and ignore counter-arguments, but throw me a bone here.

a) it's exposure.
b) win or lose, just about all cars get something positive said about them. in the whole 14 seasons of top gear, there have only been a couple cars that were universally bashed.
c) it's entertainment. nobody picks their car based on what top gear says. (note that this would make top gear less scary than the car mags that they advertise in)
d) there are other companies out there, right? even if the manufacturers black-balled the show, there's a whole world of advertisers that would love to hit the 18-50 male demographic.

Whatever car James drives always looses. They always make him out to be the slow one, and when was the last time Top gear reviewed a car most people would actually buy?

The presenters will make or break this show.

(04-24-2010 11:52 AM)Baumgartnerfan Wrote: [ -> ]when was the last time Top gear reviewed a car most people would actually buy?

i would say season 13 episode 3, when they did a round-up of "cheap and cheerful" cars. so it hasn't been a really long time, but clearly it's not their normal subject.

(04-24-2010 11:52 AM)Baumgartnerfan Wrote: [ -> ], and when was the last time Top gear reviewed a car most people would actually buy?

Most people would gladly buy almost all of the cars tested, if they had the cash.
I'm kind of leaning towards a Bugatti Veyron for the weekly shop, then again maybe a Murcielago LP640-4 SV? Choices, choices.... so many choices

Memo to self, get very rich quick!

Some links to filming of segments for US Top Gear

http://jalopnik.com/5531519/top-gear-usa...e=true&s=i

http://jalopnik.com/5525913/top-gear-usa...irty-looks

a viper acr? that car makes me vomit in my throat a bit.

and tanner drifting mulholland drive? i thought they would wait a bit before redoing bits tanner has done for other shows.

*sigh* are they even going to try to make this show decent? when do we get a drag race between pickup trucks?

(05-06-2010 04:54 PM)frankdouglason Wrote: [ -> ]*sigh* are they even going to try to make this show decent? when do we get a drag race between pickup trucks?

I think that they are doing a very good job at making this decent... for their Ice Road truckers demographic.