I feel like them shooting in low definition really set them back. I mean I still watch repeats but if there was an HD version it would probably gain popularity despite being cancelled.
Ahhh there it is.... the word "literally". Easily the MOST overused word on RU-vid. Edited to add: Geezus, check out all the princesses who are triggered by my comment.
I LOVE how offended Joe is that the Top Gear lads made fun of Tesla. Bro, they've made fun of every car company ever. And probably every human race too.
I grew up watching Top Gear and still watch The Grand Tour. The way those dudes gave it their all was amazing. Theyre the best presenters and every now and again their tomfoolery did result in a good bit of real-world knowledge.
As a Brit that grew up watching Top Gear, it’s extremely entertaining seeing how the rest of the world perceive British satire and humour. It’s an open secret that TG was a sketch show presented as a documentary. Everything was usually a joke but it was usually only the UK laughing😂
I'm from Argentina, started watching Mitch & Cam recently and it hit me, you brits have levels of sarcasm and irony/self-deprecation only a trained eye can catch
2002 to 2016 Top Gear was lightning in a bottle. One of my favorite shows, I don't know what else comes close. The chemistry between these three presenters, just f*ck*ng adore it
For me personally Top Gear is the greatest TV show ever by a country mile. The humour, the chemistry between the three, the challenges and specials, the guests and short documentaries. They went to the freaking North Pole in a Toyota! Didn't expect Joe would bring up the Tesla fiasco, out of all the things Top Gear has done. Most of the show is entertainment and pure satire. They made fun of literally every car brand in the world. Clarkson's criticisms on Rover was a major cause in it's decline. They've been mocking Toyota for the Prius, campervans and caravans, the Dacia Sandero and so on for years and years. The Toyota Prius is one of the best selling cars of all time. There are huge amounts of caravans and campervans in the UK alone, the Sandero huge amounts of exposure thanks to mainly James May. Pity to see a (American) comedian butthurt about the Tesla case. Must have been filled in by his best bud Elon. Would love to see Clarkson on JRE, that episode would get a huge number of views and possibly Jeremy's final act on the internet if you give him three hours to talk about anything he likes🤣. Don't think Hammond would do it, no way May would do anything this big.
Clarkson's final act on the Internet? He's 63 years old, not 83. I honestly believe what James May said recently: they're going to keep going as a trio until one of them kicks the bucket.
The Argentina thing was over the license plate. Not stuff written on their cars. The incident that got dangerous over stuff written on their cars was when they were in the South. Alabama or Georgia or something I don't remember the state.
Btw, Alabama and Mississippi aren't known for having had incest. That was up in Appalachia, in tiny isolated mountain villages up in West Virginia. People just assume anyone with a southern accent has all the same stereotypes.
Top Gear is the show that got me into becoming a car enthusiast. I was devastated when Clarkson, May, and Hammond left the show permanently. Top Gear was one of the best shows on TV!
How did he not even mention that Richard happened almost died crashing a jet car at 300mph and was in a coma 😅 Clarkson driving a truck into a wall was probably one of the lesser dangerous stunts they’ve done.
Went out to Hennessy's place in 2001. His guys were super cool showing off their work and projects. Hennessy showed up and asked for 50 bucks for a tour. Turned around and left.
I watched every Top Gear since the mid-80s until the move to Amazon. It was one of the best because nothing was out of bounds and they had real chemistry. JRE should definitely interview Clarkson.
The Argentina episode was hilarious, same thing happened when they went to Vietnam doing a challenge against each other and to which ever car broke down first had to drive Vespas with the song “born in the USA” blasting through the speakers! 😂
Ya it's like when you were 20 and you all went on a lads holiday to Spain but you couldn't even explain to people the madness that went on when you came home haha
I wouldn't say the best cars, most exotics are pretty crappy cars, uncomfortable, not very reliable, etc. But you sacrifice for either performance (if you have access to a race track), or to show off how well off you are (if you do not have access to a racetrack)
The Falklands incident was not on purpose. The main reason for that was purely a coincidence due to Clarkson's license plate on his Porsche 928. He had deliberately chosen what car/model in advance to buying one, because the 928 is a fairly rare car that Jeremy has a sentimental connection with. It was just random that one of the two 928 models (with the specks he wanted) available in Britain at that time had a licence plate that read H982FKL, a reference to the 1982 Falklands war. Jeremy has said he didn't notice that connection until things started to heat up during the special. Also, one can find official info on the said car, that prove the licence plate was original with the car from its first registration many years prior the incident. The only way this could be deliberate was if Jeremy saw that car, noticed the licence plate, and thought, "Hey, let's buy that one and take that to Argentina." Which I frankly have trouble to believe, because of rarity of that car. Sometimes, the truth is stranger than fiction (the speculation if this was deliberate), and considering the odds at play here, I think that is just the case.
Yup, that's how I understood the story behind as well. And what is more, in the UK the plate comes with the car I think, you buy the car with the plate. AFAIK you cannot change it easily.
How cool would it to see Clarkson, Hammond, and May on JRE. Not just to learn behind the scenes from Top Gear, but their move to The Grand Tour, and their current projects. I watch all 3 of their current shows like Clarkson's Farm, DriveTribe, the new pub, etc...
Lol Henessy talks about everyone else, never about himself. I hope he talked about his cars more than other people he's met in the rest of the interview.
@@Seasniffer69 Exactly my point. This whole video is him telling other people's experiences, because he was in close proximity. The f5 video isn't even 5 minutes long. This is my point.
That happened just a bit off from where I live. Truly terrifying stuff seeing such a brilliant man and such a brilliant car smash into a wall of solid bedrock.
Top Gear makes me proud to be British! Some of the best TV moments of all time come from that great show, When the original hosts left that's when the show truly ended.
John "I'll take your money but not finish building your car, even though I've sold your stock parts online" Hennessey. No doubt about it, he builds some fast cars. But I wouldn't trust him. The reputation has been tarnished.
Yup it’s well known here locally that he’s got that sort of reputation. The people that don’t know him are usually the suckers going to him for getting work done. Viper community especially has a strong distain for him, and I can’t say I blame them. He’s done a lot of shady stuff and there’s no way I’d trust him with my car or my money.
@@_ThatGuyGus_ probably has to do with the ridiculous stuff he makes on occasion so he can get new suckers. Most of the locals at least know not to go to him if they want actual legitimate performance work done.
When I worked for DCX Viper Racing Division (Dodge) as an engineer back in the 00's, we sent John a Viper to build for us ( again, we're Dodge... the manufacturer). Took him twice as long as it should have to send us the finished car back, and the first time Tommy (Archer) took the car around our test track... it blew up. Dude gets by on his name alone.
look into hte Raptors by him, i forget exact numbers but it was like 7 of the 12 they built went up in flames. i think was from the pressurized fuel lines they used, but not positive, its been years since i was deep in this stuff.
Normally I do not like American cars but the Velociraptor and the Exorcist are truly amazing cars. Well done John, especially as the presenters can be very harsh on vehicles. Long live The Grand Tour and Hennessy cars
The "message" written on the cars in Argentina were not scrawled on with a pen or a sticker on the wheel arch, it was the license plate from the UK. Apparently it was a pure accident/coincidence that the license plate references the Falkland Wars (H982 FKL), and I heard you can even check the cars registration history in the UK and see it remained the same. Maybe they chose that car for that reason, it's hard to say, but it seems very unlikely it was intenional.
They had decided to use a 928 for the film. Now they just had to find one. At the time there were only two registered in the UK. The H982 FLK one and another. The other one being in considerably worse nick, so they chose the better one
They're still doing stuff for The Grand Tour, but it's pretty much exclusively their globetrotting specials. They did away with their live audiences, celebrity portions, car reviews, and the like. All three of those guys would be great guests on the show: Clarkson is a really dynamic personality, May is a keen dabbler and solid conversationalist, and Hammond is a lot of fun and has some great stories to share. Any of them would be cool, all three at once would be glorious chaos.
It would be scheduling hell, but I would love to see individual episodes of each one, culminating in a 1 on 3 interview with them all; in the same vein as the episodes with Joe and all his comedy friends.
@@seanwilks7712 The two are unrelated. There was no reason given for the ending of their contracts, so we can only assume. The team are just getting old and have their own side projects now. It's been like one special a year at this rate, I think they are just ready to move on.
What an odd comment to post... were you listening to him? Everything he said made it quite clear he was not a regular viewer (if a viewer at all) of top gear and he doesn't watch the grand tour, he only knew things (some interesting) from when he or people he knew had been involved in some way. He didn't really give the impression he liked the show all that much. Everything he said about Argentina was wrong especially how they left the country and you'd only have to have seen the Argentina special itself to know that. Think Rogan should give some (more) episodes a try and that he would really like them
For those who would like to know. Dunsfold aerodrome was a WWII fighter base that then became important in the 60’s & 70’s for Harrier JumpJet post production testing. The Harrier was manufactured in a Kingston factory by the Thames and then trucked in two pieces (wings and fuselage) then put together and engine started, tested & eventually airborne at Dunsfold before the aircraft were flown to its intended base.
@@johnmiller9953 lol slightly more interesting is a pilot crashed his plane off the end of the runway and as it went across a road he hit a car and killed the wife and kids of a fellow dunsfold pilot who just happened to be driving past .
In Argentina they didn't write on any of their cars, but one of the cars they brought to use for the episode was a Porsche that had a license plate "H982 FLK" which some Argentinians thought was an intentional reference to the 1982 Faulklands War. Clarkson actually had that number plate registered to his Porsche since the early 90s so this wasn't done just for the episode and didn't even know people would read the plate as any kind of reference.
Just to be clear, the car had the plate registered since the 90s, but Clarkson bought it specifically for the trip. Supposedly it was one of only 2 available in the UK.
@@ThommyOcho This entire podcast is built on misinformation. Only bill burr is the one with enough integrity to say "Neither you nor I no anything about that. Let's not talk about it".
This also ignores how the cars are bought. A lot of people seem to think CHM peruse the classifieds and chose the cars. They don't. They say to production what they want and some intern goes off to buy it. They don't often even see what's been purchased until they're on location.
It wasn't even Clarkson's Porsche. The production buys their cars remotely, and at most the hosts request certain type(s) of car which the production then builds a list to choose off of. Jeremy wanted a specific old rare Porsche, and the one they found for sale just happened to have that plate since it was first sold. Production staff even went back to the ad, and the license plate was blocked out.
Mr Hennessy got a couple of things wrong, the license plate was H982FKL which was seen as a subtle dig at the Falklands War. The records show that the plate was original to the car from new. I think it’s incredibly far fetched to say that they saw this car registration and decided to plan a whole trip to Argentina based on an obscure reference, there is even more detail to be accounted for and many show workers have all come out and said it was a total coincidence. I am inclined to believe it for many reasons, the main reason being that Top Gear was not subtle enough for that. As they showed, their idea of jokes was crashing into a brick wall, not some tiny tiny detail on a license plate that won’t get much screen time. In regards to the Tesla thing, it’s also worth mentioning that another reason why they trolled Tesla is for years Tesla wouldn’t let them have a car and messed them about, saying it didn’t need TV coverage etc, so it was there way of roasting them as well as trying to make comedy of electric cars. Also, the BBC is completely Independent of the British government, no interference from the government or courts in that matter, in fact the government would have liked the BBC to loose! 😆
Perfectly put, you said everything I wanted to say. For someone who worked on the show hid knowledge of the show is pretty bad, but with that being said most British people used yo watch top gear religiously every Sunday, and we would see news about them, this guy wouldn't really get news and I can guarantee probably hasn't watch a tone of their shows like us.
@@NotKimiRaikkonen a small amount of reading around the subject and listening to interviews by several sources will know that once it became apparent that the number plates had caused distress. A crew member who was scheduled to join the team later, was sent with some joke plates to replace the original.
I guarantee they saw the car, bought the car and thought they'd just use it at some point in the future. And one day they just thought "fk it, lets go to Argentina with it and make a road trip" It massively blew up on them far worse than they thought it would though.
BBC Top Gear is without a doubt the greatest television show I’ve ever watched. I love Clarkson so much that I watched him try and be a farmer during the lockdown.
I was lucky enough to see Top Gear live. That was a lot of fun. They had a mobile V8 studio, they played soccer with cars, etc. Great show! It would be great to see these guys here.
Story on Hennessy is he was a big Viper builder back in the day. He was taking parts of one car and installing them on other cars and basically ripping people off. I remember it all blew up on the old LS1Tech forum. He came on to defend himself and it went downhill from there 😂
@@BeanieNinjay0 yeah I remember one Viper owner posted about parts being sold off his car. When he found the car it was in pieces with even the hood missing. Seriously don’t know how people still give this guy any kind of attention.
Hes def a dude who just wants to make money, All they do at hennessey is bolt a bunch of go fast parts on factory cars and package it nicely with an insane price tag, similar to Brabus, mansory etc... no actual development being done but perfect for people with way too much money, which is their main customer base (dubai etc.. )
I remember that "lorry" episode. They all customized tractor trailer semi trucks and part of one test had Clarkson slam into brick wall. It was real and quite bad. Even some on board cameras were damaged and broken from the impact. I think it cracked a rib or worse on him idr exactly. Just one of many insane things they didn't fake. Hammond almost died more than once, even being in a coma when wrecked that one car
Community notes here: The Argentina thing was a number plate "H982 FKL" - 1982 and Falklands. The presenters were rushed out under cover and flew home. The crew had to abandon the cars and drove at speed to the border with Chile and flew home from there. The writing things on cars came from the roadtrip across the southern states in one of the very early seasons. Things like "hilary for president" and "man love rules ok" had them chased by hillbillies out of town from a petrol station in Alabama.
It's not a UK-company-owned-by-the-government in combination with a UK court situation, but rather because knowing that the nature of the show and the way these "tests"/"reviews" are conducted are not necessarily informational/educational but purely for entertainment purposes. Because of this IT IS in fact reasonable to assume that no viewer would compare the tesla's performance as indicated per the "review" to its real life performance - it makes total sense
Well said!!! In the same way I wouldn’t buy a Ford Fiesta because it makes an excellent landing craft for the Marines. That’s another one of their car tests. This whole interview doesn’t ‘get’ Britain or British humour.
When Top Gear tested a car they would drive it for a day or two before shooting. The Tesla broke down, they had the Tesla guys look over it & they fixed it. Then it came time to make the "review" & they worked the breakdown into the story. It didn't actually break down while filming but it did the day before.
And Teslas at the time did have issues (as evidenced by the actual break down) and low range at the time, and the issue of few charging stations was real.
@@defeqel6537 issue of few charging stations is a major problem in most of the world still. There were half a day queues in finnish lapland during winter holiday season to charge teslas. Let's take a 1000-mile family trip to middle of nowhere in a meme car. Works near a city with no long journeys when you have your own charging plug.
That episode was shot at area 27 in Oliver BC, Canada. An awesome Villeneuve designed track and welcoming driving community. Area 27 is an amazing gem!
He got the entire thing with Argentina wrong. The license plate was an anagram that Argentines claimed said “1982 Falkland.” And the crew had to drive out of Argentina into Chile.
7:28 Yes! My favorite Grand Tour episode out of them all. It featured the best cars (at the time... early 2019) from the top 3 US carmakers: Ford Mustang RTR (by Hennessy) with 740HP driven by Clarkson, Dodge Challenger Demon w/ 800HP driven by Hammond, and the Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Exorcist w/ 1000HP (its name not by accident) driven by May.
@dontstealmypizza Back then when they were only working on Gen II Vipers. They got in trouble for taking parts off of customers' cars to finish others. People would take finished cars for service or upgrades. And they would take parts off to them to finish new cars they were pumping out.
The show was 99% scripted and they weren't shy about the fact. When they got some award for some big awards show for "best unscripted television show" Jeremy said "I deeply appreciate the award for best unscripted tv show but I can't be there because we are too busy writing the script for the next season." They also did a follow-up episode on Tesla where they made fun of the whole lawsuit and obviously wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
its scripted but not 99% If you watched the behind the scene of Grand Tour, there are always over 60 hours of unscripted scenes (that the producer, Andy, has to watch.) then they add some unscripted into the final cut.
@@flush_entity the script is pretty much the skeleton, what makes it good is their abilities to make everything organic so you never know if something is scripted or just happening on the moment
the thought if having clarson may and hommond all on. joe would never get a word in but it would be hilarious. i miss those three and their years are fading them, we need more of them now or we will never get more of them.
Can we talk about all the lawsuits this guy has for not building the cars keeping people's cars forever. Taking advantage of people in other countries and holding their cars for years at a time. I mean it's cleared bankruptcy. So many lawsuits against him
The 'side shows' of the main 3 Top Gear guys are worth the watch. Hammond has several 'dirty jobs' type series and a weird nature one. May has a great foodie/travel show with a lot of Japanese weirdness, and Clarkston has a rural lifestyle/farming show.
@@CaptainBuzzBeeyep and everyone got vaccines that could connect to bluetooth and the whole thing was caused by 5G. Seems weird people still use 5G phones
I was lucky enough to get on one of the last season's of Top Gear and they are just as funny off camera. Be great to get them on the podcast. Clarkson would get along great with Joe..
Top gear was so good, im sure everybody had days where they would just watch non stop top gear repeats on Dave. Grand tour is great too they just dont make enough of them.
just to provide some context for the part where John talks about the danger they were in in Argentina. The "writing on the car" that John refers to was actually the registration plate of the Porsche 928 that Jeremy was driving, which read "H982 FKL" the first part being interpreted as the year of the Falklands war between the United Kingdom and the Falkland Islands, 1982, and the last part being interpreted as an abbreviation of Falkland "FKL". this together sparked the outrage amongst a group of locals that noticed it while the presenters where in convoy which then snowballed into what appeared to be a larger more coordinated group trying to attack the top gear team by throwing rocks and other debris at the crew vehicles. They were eventually escorted to safety in a convoy with local police. James may years later goes on to say in an interview on a RU-vid channel called Drivetribe that the registration plate was completely coincidental and that at the time of choosing a Porsche 928 to be used in filming there were only 2 registered in the uk and one of them was in a worse condition than the other. He goes on to say that they chose the Porsche 928 that was in a better condition and it just so happened to have the registration "H982 FKL" and that they didn't realise it would cause a problem until it was too late. It's possible someone mentioned it and raised an issue with it but since they went ahead with filming, any concerns that may have been raised were probably dismissed as unlikely anything to be worried about. (any additional information that people have to add, please feel free to share)
@@brendandoherty9930 The car, a Porsche 928, was chosen by Clarkson for personal reasons, there were only 2 them available in the UK at the time, and the registration was original. Please stop ignoring basic facts because you want to feel special.
Met Clarkson twice at the Hawkstone brewery in the Cotswolds last year, he threw a little party for his beer in June, and a larger one in September. I was suprised, he was actually flattered I came all the way from Germany for the event. Made fun of each others accents, talked about cars and music. Second time around he had a v6 Ferrari hybrid, I was parked next to him in a car French plates and left hand drive I left there the night before, so naturally he was curious. The Ferrari had some light blue accents on it, which looked horrible, so we're both a little hung over making fun of that. People might dislike him for his views, but one on one he's very forthcoming actually.
