"the Drive" watched the 4th episode of the new Top Gear, and had a cow over how bad it was

looks like it won't be worth a second season... the 4th episode had the lowest ratings in the past 10 years of the show.

That is incredibly horrible. Any idea what they are paying the new crew to make the show worth watching? I'd guess, twice as much as the results are worth, maybe 3 times.

http://www.thedrive.com/a-list/4088/top-gears-fourth-episode-was-perhaps-the-worst-so-far

Flop Gear cast creates a new low... lowest audience in a decade. 3 of the presenters didn't appear. And the guest star in a reasonably priced car? Doesn't drive a car. Ker-flop

lowest opening show viewing figures in a decade... wow. The last time the ratings were this bad, was 2006

How bad was it? People switched over to Antiques Roadshow. Yeah... that's pretty bad when you'd rather learn about what was found in a attic than try to be entertained


Summed up perfectly in this quote: Top Gear 2016 is to original Top Gear as Ghostbusters 2016 is to original Ghostbusters  a tweet from James Delingpole

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/30/top-gears-first-episode-branded-boring-and-badly-presented-by-fa/

The news comes as host Chris is odds on to be fired from Top Gear after figures confirmed the show was a ratings flop.

Bookies now offer odds of ¼ that it would be the last series of the show with Chris Evans at the helm and ½ that the show would be axed altogether.

Top Gear drew an average of just 4.3 million viewers, and at the same time, other channel, Antiques Roadshow drew 3.8 million viewers. Yeah, all the hype, and ridiculously overpriced hosts, and they barely had better ratings than vases and sofas.

Top Gear lost its regular title of being Sunday night’s most watched show in England to Countryfile, which peaked at 5.3million viewers and had an impressive 27% share of viewers.

Brad Pitt was supposed to be the guest star, he bailed, they replaced him with a cook and an actor who has zero car credibility

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/7186064/US-fans-take-a-swipe-at-charmless-Top-Gear-as-revamped-show-makes-debut.html

Jalopnik did a good review of it... http://jalopnik.com/what-the-hell-top-gear-1779481253

So did Drive:
http://www.thedrive.com/a-list/3743/12-thoughts-on-the-revamped-top-gear-premiere

The new Top Gear... huh, seems to have problems. Here is the new version of the "star in a reasonably priced car" - It's a rally cross mini (over priced BMW), and they use paved and dirt segments of the airport

I don't think it has any of the charm the well known experience had. Time will tell if it gets less distracting. Maybe it was just the known places where we'd pay closer attention to see if the drivers would lose it on Hammerhead, or miss the last corner and womble on the grass before the finish line

another typical office day, guys goofing off looking at cars for sale

So, who is the woman in the new Top Gear host team? Very accomplished, at many things, and has been racing on the ring probably more than anyone else... she was BMW's driver

Sabine Schmitz is as famed as a motor racing driver for BMW and Porsche is she is famous for driving the BMW 'Ring Taxi' around the Nurburgring race track, for 14 years, where tourists could pay to ride along with a pro driver

She has also been on Top Gear before, in 2004 she competed with Jeremy in a Jag around the Ring, and beat him by 47 seconds... and raced him in a van... yeah, a van, and was only 9 seconds off his pace



skip the first 4 minutes



she won the 24 Hours Nurburgring in 1996 and 97.
She also trained as a hotel manager and sommelier, and she owned a bar-restaurant in Nurburg

And if fast cars weren't challenge enough, Sabine qualified as a helicopter pilot in 2004.

For a good interview of Sabine: http://www.m5board.com/vbulletin/most-memorable-threads/39033-answers-sabine-ring-taxi-driver.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3444138/How-Sabine-Schmitz-new-Gear-host.html

Thanks Steve! 

Top Gear Festival Sydney, with Clarkson and May, in Reliant Robins, playing soccer with cars (as always, skip the first useless minute) funniest thing you'll see all day (esp the save at the 3 minute mark)

for more top gear soccer with cars, skip to the 3 minute mark -

and skip the first 4 minutes

Top Gear's new premiere was yesterdays news, literally. Today, I get to share with you the new show on Amazon with Hammonds, May and Clarkson. "The Grand Tour"

Clarkson, Hammond and May have announced the name of their forthcoming Amazon Prime series. It’s going to be called The Grand Tour, and it’s set to air this fall.

Early reports had suggested the show might be called Gear Knobs, but in April Clarkson claimed the BBC had a legal right to stop the new show using the word “gear” in the title.

Other details are emerging, too. As the name indicates, The Grand Tour will be a traveling roadshow, taping in a different location each week. Instead of a studio, the gang will film inside a tent.

“Well, that took a while…,” said Jay Marine, VP of Amazon Video Europe. “After nine months of deep thought, debate and deliberation, the guys have come up with a name that reflects the global ambition of the new show. ‘The Grand Tour’ will be one of the most anticipated TV launches ever."

https://www.facebook.com/thegrandtour
https://www.amazon.co.uk/b/?tag=skim1x152037-21&node=10257739031
http://variety.com/2016/digital/global/former-top-gear-amazon-the-grand-tour-1201771210/

“Thing is,” said Clarkson, “we’ll be travelling the world hosting each episode in a different country, from a giant tent. It’s a sort of ‘grand tour’, if you like. So we’ve decided to call it The Grand Tour.”

May said he was underwhelmed by the name. “I wanted to call it ‘Nigel’, or ‘Roger’,” he said. “We needed a name, and they’re names.”

Hammond was more positive. “I already love camping,” he said. “But this is something else. We are like our pioneering and prospecting forebears, sallying forth into a new frontier of broadcasting, and making our home where…”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/11/jeremy-clarksons-amazon-show-grand-tour-top-gear?CMP=twt_gu

the new Top Gear debuts with new hosts on May 29th, they have finally put out a new preview commercial

http://www.topgear.com/car-news/top-gear-tv/watch-extended-version-top-gear-tv-trailer  to see it, it's not embeddable

http://www.topgear.com/car-news/top-gear-tv

wow, the hair styles of the Top Gear guys, in the 70s

https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson?lang=en

What will the new show be called, Clarkson, Hammonds, and May are still undecided. They are trying to settle on one name. Readers had some suggestions too. (I thought "gear knobs" was it.. maybe not)

Punch Buggies                                               Op-tay Ear-gay
 Prime Knobs                                                 Thanks, Jeff Bezos!
 We're Better Than Joey From Friends              Bottom Cog
 Chris Who?                                                  Floppy Paddles
 The Bolshy Yarblockos                                  HamMaySon
 The Fat and the Fartious                                Amazon's Done a Car Show
 Biggest Budgeted Carshow (A.K.A. BBC)     Shiftheads
 2 Men and a Hamster                                    Gear Knobs

http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/04/09/bbc-bans-jeremy-clarkson-using-word-gear-new-amazon-show-title
http://www.thedrive.com/a-list/3215/why-cant-jeremy-clarkson-name-his-new-show?xid=the-drive_socialflow_facebook

And Jeremy Clarkson has joined facebook too: https://www.facebook.com/JeremyClarkson
Or you can get a lot more updates from JC on Twitter https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson?lang=en

May, Clarkson and Hammond's new motoring show on Amazon

The trio and executive producer Andy Wilman signed a three-year deal and there are going to be 30-plus long episodes with Amazon worth a reputed £160m, with Clarkson on £10m a series, Hammond and May on £7m each.

May confirms it will begin in the autumn, with each run likely to be 11 episodes, possibly more. It will be scheduled – albeit not in the traditional sense – so won’t be immediately available to binge-watch.

It will also leave the TV studio behind, disappointing devotees of the “cool wall” but an exciting prospect for fans of Top Gear’s sumptuously filmed location shoots.

May says they are making more episodes than they did in the latter days of Top Gear and it is “logistically more complicated ... We are making a series of TV films and we don’t have a base”.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/27/james-may-chris-evans-top-gear-amazon

Here is the new Top Gear... preview.

They hired the right production staff members to give the preview a lot of snap and kick... lets see if the on camera talent can measure up