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Top Gear

Nine-part series

Starts Monday 12 December

7.30 pm

Top Gear is a high octane mix of performance cars, adrenalin, comedy and celebrities and will screen on SBS Television on Monday 12 December at 7.30 pm. It’s the hugely popular BBC motoring magazine program that test drives and brutally appraises the world’s most popular cars with startling honesty – along with celebrity laps, irreverent wraps and breathtaking stunts and driving.

Top Gear is a world away from the stuff of motoring sections and manufacturers’ brochures. With its extraordinary popularity in the UK, the Top Gear presenters are a dominating force, making and breaking some car models with their recommendations, and making manufacturers cringe as they, like the audience, wait for the verdict as the Top Gear hosts test drive the latest and fastest cars.

And look out for the Aussie Holden Monaro in episode one when it’s tested against the best of British and American car technology on a Welsh beach.

Along with car tests and comparisons, news and reviews, all delivered with stinging wit and disarming honesty, Top Gear features Star in a Reasonably Priced Car when well-known celebrities try for the fastest lap on the race track. With its three presenters egged on by a studio audience, Top Gear is the most entertaining car show ever to appear on Australian television.

The three hosts of Top Gear are Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. Jeremy's irreverent style turned the motoring industry on its head when he first appeared on Top Gear in 1989; James has been writing for car magazines for many years; and Richard is a genuine petrol-head who started his career in cable television before moving on to Top Gear

In the first episode, Jeremy takes the new Porsche 911 Carrera S for a test drive, and according to him the car has a ride so rough it will turn your bones to dust on a bumpy road. That said, he says it’s still one of the best handling cars ever made.

In Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, English funny man Bill Bailey (star of Black Books) manages to zip round the race track in a respectable 1m 53.4s, which is a bit faster than the time posted by Eurovision’s Terry Wogan, who holds the second slowest time ever of 2m 04s.

The boys also take some cars out for a spin on a beach in Wales as they trial cars from Australia, the USA and Britain. The cars are the Vauxhall Monaro VXR (Australian), a Chrysler 300c (American) and holding up the British corner the Jaguar S type R. After a day of comprehensive thrashing through sand and water the team all agreed – the Monaro was the clear winner.

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  dan_the_man said:
And look out for the Aussie Holden Monaro in episode one when it’s tested against the best of British and American car technology on a Welsh beach.

This part of the episode can be seen here.

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  Neil said:
SBS got ripped,,,they should have bought 5th gear heaps better than this dribble.

Neil.

I've heard a lot of people say Top Gear is better. But after watching the show tonight (yes my opinion is based on one show), I would have to agree with you.

They only spent at most about 20mins of an hour long episode actually testing cars, the rest is a sort of light entertainment.

Also they compared a sports car (Monaro) against a luxury car (300C) and threw in a sporty luxury car that is way more expensive than both of them (Jag S-type?). Not only that but they did the comparisons on a beach. Sure it made for great photo opportunities, but who the hell is going to drive these cars on sand?

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see what I noticed is that clarkson doesn't really "review" the car, he just points out silly things or tries to make something out of the small issues he might find with a stupid pommy joke.

Like "this porsche has a small problem, the gear knob just fell off". I mean that looked so staged it wasn't funny, and even if it wasn't - who's to say it wasn't thrashed the pants off by the last moto journalist to get their hands on it...

All seems a bit silly.

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Couple of things...

why do they use miles per hour? I thought the UK and Europe used the metric system.

I also understand what people are saying about the car "reviews" sometimes I come away feeling like they didn’t really review it but just talked crap for 5 minutes from either a good or bad view.

Overall I find the show extremely entertaining, I amaddicted.

Edited by noise
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lucky u saw this thread it reminded me that the 7th season has started already!

I am downloading the episode 2-5 as we speak :D

Good thing is you have a recorded version is you can skip through the stupid part of the show with news and a celebrity.

re jeremy vs tiff, i reckon tiff is a better driver and i prefer his reviews, jeremy is just a wanker but funny sometimes :(

You have to take the reviews with a large grain of salt sometimes especially when it comes to english cars.

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