If you, like me, loved Top Gear, 2015 will forever live in your memory as the day the Top Gear theme music died.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for Amazon to give us all hope that it wasn’t over when the infamous trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May signed a long-term, big-money deal with the company synonymous with questionable products.
That deal led to the launch of Amazon Prime Video in Australia (and indeed, many parts of the free world) and opened the door for Aussie car tragics to see more of their favourite motoring presenters.
Say what you will about The Grand Tour, some love it, some hate it. The same can be said for Top Gear. I will harbour no ill-will towards those of you who don’t get a kick out of three idiots falling over and occasionally driving cars.
I, however, will forever consider September 13, 2024 as my equivalent of American Pie.
Of course, I don’t have a Chevy and I won’t be visiting any levees, but I will be taking a long, long moment when the credits roll on the last ever Clarkson, Hammond and May motoring special.
You see, I wouldn’t be here, working at CarExpert, creating automotive video content if it wasn’t for Top Gear. I am 33, which means that for nearly two-thirds of my life I have had the privilege and pleasure of watching whatever the Top Gear team expertly crafted and broadcast on television.
It was 2006 when I first discovered the holy trinity of automotive journalists (apologies to our resident CarExpert journos). It was a slightly older episode where they raced an Aston Martin DB9 against the Eurostar from England to Monte Carlo. Man did that day trigger a chain reaction.
I was obsessed. And as I got older and more into film making, I started paying more attention to the production of the show. The way it was shot, the editing techniques, the colouring, the sound.
Yes on the surface it was about a middle-aged man sliding around a disused air base in an exotic sports car, but scratch a little deeper and it was a crew of masters perfecting their craft.
Top Gear, and later The Grand Tour, pioneered a lot of incredible car-based filming techniques – even influencing how some films are shot these days.
Take in-car cameras. Whilst the idea of a camera mounted inside a car may have been around for decades, they generally required regular stops to change the film stock, or reset lighting or replace the battery.
The BBC production team, led by Andy Wilman found new ways to mount tiny cameras on the windscreens of cars, even creating mounts, suction cup rigs and long term power/recording systems to allow the lads to drive all day without having to constantly worry about whether the camera was going to capture everything.
They pioneered car-to-car filming, originally strapping a bloke and a camera into the back of a Range Rover and later working with external companies to develop smaller exterior mounting systems that can be used for extended periods of time, rather than relying on the “traditional Hollywood” approach of a Russian Arm.
Credit: Jacek Wyszynsk Photography
Then there was the editing. The ability that Wilman, Clarkson and the post-production team had to take hundreds of hours of footage and turn it into a funny, charismatic and beautiful piece of moving art set a new standard within the industry – one that has arguably never been bettered.
I, along with dozens of other people working in the automotive journalism industry, owe our existence to these guys. The techniques they developed and the styles they pioneered are used by us on a daily basis.
The way we mount cameras in cars, the positioning and lighting – all learnt from Top Gear. The way we film cars driving past camera, doing stunts or even road trips are all influenced by them.
Credit: My Life at Speed
Whilst here at CarExpert we have moved away from the heavy storytelling style of video content in an effort to help people buy new cars, when given the opportunity, we will sneak something into a video – especially something that isn’t a regular car review.
We’ve all known this day was coming for a while now. When the trio all started doing their own intensive projects it was apparent they were looking to put their car travels to bed. I can’t blame the guys, 22 years is a long time in any job role, let alone the kind of workload that would come with doing this job.
Those adventures where they spend a week or two in the wilderness to bring us 90 minutes of fun, entertaining television would be beyond intense. But they always present a beautiful, polished product, even if you don’t necessarily enjoy the content.
As I slowly accept that I just watched their last outing, I’ll remember the good times.
The Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust (better known a Geoff), the TG V12 train, racing a Bugatti Veyron against a slow plane, racing a Veyron against a very fast plane, Hammond’s horrific rocket car accident, Michael Schumacher being “unveiled” as The Stig, the amazing Senna mini documentary, Hammond crashing a million dollar electric car.
There’s also the original Botswana Special, the India and Vietnam and North Pole specials, building John and driving him across Mongolia and Jeremy Clarkson breaking down in tears in the Grand Tour tent when they announced they won’t be hosting an audience-facing TV show any more.
Getting to see them perform Top Gear Live and the one-off Top Gear Festival in Sydney still lives fresh in my mind.
The things these shows did over the past 2 decades, the spinoffs they spawned, the recognition they have is what any other TV show could only dream of. But at the end of the day, they were always just a “pokey little motoring show on BBC 2”. And that pokey little motoring show changed my world.
So as I sit in quiet contemplation, reliving the closing credits, the bridge of American Pie is playing in my head; “and the three men I admired the most, the father son and the holy ghost, they caught the last train for the coast, the day the music died”.
Of course, our trio had far more successful careers than Buddy Holly and his friends, plus Jezza, Hamster and Mr Slowly most likely drove, but not to a coast (considering Zimbabwe is a land-locked nation). But take a moment, fire up your music player of choice and crank out “Jessica” by The Allman Brothers, for old times sake.
Like Top Gear before it, whilst The Grand Tour as a name might live on, it will never be the same without our three anti-heroes. I imagine Mr Wilman will be handing back his parking pass too, as will large swathes of the crew that followed them from the BBC to Amazon.
This isn’t just the end of the road for Clarkson, Hammond and May, it’s likely the end of the road for the crew that brought us all that joy for all these years.
For me, September 13, 2024 will forever live as one of my most sad days… in the world.
