Why Top Gear USA can't Happen

About a year ago SBC in Australia announced that it would be making an Australian version of the hugely successful and absolutely brilliant BBC Top Gear. A few months later NBC announced that it would be making an American version of Top Gear. Then, a couple months later they had chosen the shows presenters and the show was expected to be on TV earlier this year. Now there's a good chance that it won't even happen, but that doesn't really bother me. NBC has done a pretty terrible job of setting up the show.

Ezra Dyer of Automobile Magazine recently wrote a column in the magazine about what happened when he was invited to audition for the show. His first audition he said went terribly, but his second audition shows what is so terribly wrong with the show. In the second audition he was told that it was for the James May of the show. For those of you unfamiliar with BBC's Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson is very tall, not terribly smart, and very very outspoken, but unbelievably funny and talented. Richard Hammond is very short, a talented driver and daredevil, and every woman in England seems to be in love with him. James May has the nickname Captain Slow, because he drives (slowly) a 60 hp Fiat Panda, is a musician by training, and has several TV shows about Wine, but he is also arguably the most funny and was the best addition to the show. The BBC wasn't looking for racing car drivers or anybody who is that obviously interested in cars. All three of the Top Gear presenters are self described petrolheads and that is the key to the show's success. The three of them have personalities that work together brilliantly. Two of the three people NBC chose are racing car drivers, the first choice Tanner Foust has a show on SPEED Channel, but was also in the 2008 Race Of Champions. The person who got the James May position has a home improvement show on HGTV and drives a Toyota Camry Hybrid, which means he isn't a petrolhead. A petrolhead would never buy such a terrible car and I know you'll be saying that James May bought a very slow minicar, but the Panda much more like a Mini, fun, fuel efficient, and not very fast.

They simply can't make a show that attempts to copy another show, it will be a huge disappointment. The people they chose aren't funny, I've seen their other shows before, they're not funny and not all that entertaining. In his column Ezra Dyer also brings up how few car shows there are here. As he says the car is something we use every day, but there are more TV shows about bass fishing and hunting than about cars, but only a few people hunt or go bass fishing regularly. Many of the car shows we have here are just stupid, shows like Pimp My Ride, Overhaulin', and all those silly custom car, tuner car, and drag racing show are crap. The only real car show here I can think of is MotorWeek, which can only be described as educational, it's less entertaining than Consumer Reports. Jay Leno was the perfect person for this show, but he refused to be on a show that will become a rather pathetic imitation of the real show.

The BBC Top Gear isn't afraid to be extreme and offensive, but an NBC version will be wimpy in comparison. NBC doesn't like to offend anybody, just watch the TODAY show, it's full of soft news and they don't criticize anybody that is popular. The NBC version of Top Gear won't be able to criticize cars like the Toyota Prius that are seen as socially responsible, even though it's terrible. Anything they want to do that is irresponsible, dangerous, or might anger some environmentalists won't happen. If they want to make an American version of Top Gear it needs to be extreme, entertaining, and hilarious, but if the show goes on the way it is it won't be any of those. What NBC should do is show BBC's Top Gear, but that would be too offensive and would definitely anger environmentalists and hippies. Maybe Fox would be able to make a good Top Gear USA, shows that they have like The Simpsons are more offensive.