The best segment they ever did was Clarkson and May driving around in peugot's pretending to be clueless senior citizens, crashing into everything, its the hardest I ever laughed at anything they ever did and it was a pretty simple segment which had no challenges, no celebrities and not even Hammond involved. It never got funnier than that.
@@Skeletomania series 22 episode 5, the funny segment is loaded on youtube though if you just want the one Im talking about ua-cam.com/video/9TnGjq9mWSI/v-deo.html
for me, it's not about the show, it's about watching these 3 friends fuck around on camera, and im happy to see them do that no matter how good or bad it ends up being
Exactly. After Season 9, it became less about the cars, and more about the personalities. That's what made it succeed. Take away the personalities, you take away the heart of the show.
To this day Clarkson, May, and Hammond are the most entertaining trio on television. I stream the old Top Gear regularly although episodes do seem to be disappearing. Shame.
All there solo programms are fine too. Watch James May cook? Sure why not Watch Jeremy farming? Sure why not (and what a show it was it broke ALL the Amazon series records)
My favourite Top Gear episode was the Polar special. By far it seemed to be the most real episode, and what they achieved is no small feat. The tone during the trip suggested that they realised they genuinely could be in serious danger if they were not careful, and this shone through as authenticity for the episode. 10/10
Plus the fact that they royally pissed off the rules and regs gestapo by daring to have a GnT whilst operating a vehicle within 500 miles of someone that they *might* crash in to makes me happy :)
One of my favourite moments from the Africa special…. *Jeremy is sitting on his bed in the “hotel” and peels back the sheet to reveal a large brown stain* Clarkson “Oh my god………HAMMOND!” *Cuts to Hammond looking rather sheepish in his room*
Just made it through all three videos, thanks for this brief prenestation and history. I remember being very pissed off when the show ended. Re-watched the whole series a couple of years back, and when I got to the last season, with just May and Hammond saying goodbye at the end it was legitimately difficult for a fan of the series to see it end. Thankfully The Grand Tour and Drivetribe are still a thing, but even Clarkson teared up at the end of season three of the Grand Tour. I barely watch TV programs, but damn what a journey Top Gear was.
I always knew Clarkson and the gang would come back in some way or another, just maybe not with cars or on the BBC. I was more thinking how stupid it was for the BBC to fire him.
I believe that one of the problems with the later Top Gear shows was that they were cut from their full hour to about 45 minutes in order for the shows to "fit" American commercials in. Top gear is not the only show to suffer from this. The world has lost a lot of fun content by BBC's changes to accommodate the US broadcasters.
No they weren't cut on the original BBC broadcast, maybe the repeats on your TV network cuts them, like here in the Netherlands they often cut out the news. In the episode with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz they cut out the Ayrton Senna tribute at the end, but it's all there in the original episode.
@@KevinKickChannel Well, I'm sorry to say that you are just incorrect. I watch Top Gear on BBC, and the older shows were close to an hour long, sometimes a bit longer. When they started to show them on BBC America, they would actually run the entire show, taking about an hour and 20 minutes. Now, the BBC Shows (which I can't stand, by the way) only broadcast for about 45 minutes on BBC iPlayer. This same thing happened with Doctor Who and various other BBC shows I watch.
@9:55 The gigantic elephant in the room was a nice touch 👌🤣 I thought it was hilarious and typical of them to tackle the issue of JCs absence with humour.
For me, Top Gear ended in 2015, when Clarkson, Hammond, May, and Wilman left to start The Grand Tour. The BBC then created a lame copycat show, also called 'Top Gear', but now populated with ridiculous imposters who tried to copy the format of the authentic Top Gear. (but failed).
Rudyard (the pink bear from the Burma special) is my favourite Top Gear one-shot character. I found the scene where Clarkson ‘feeds’ it jam to be both humorous and heartwarming.
I was rather late to the TG party - I didn't start watching until 2015 - but I've since watched all Clarkson era episodes including his DVD specials and some of the "old" TG content and I always have this strange feeling of nostalgia while watching, like we've really lost something special that we're never going to get back.
getting fired from the BBC was the best thing that happened to Clarkson and quitting was the best for Hammond and May. They make way more money now and have more shows lined up
Amazing quality of video. You should do a 4th episode on TGT. I’d certainly tune in, subscribed and turned on notifications so hopefully will see it sometime in the future!
Thank you for this documentary. A great trip down memory lane and really interesting. I think most people will forever be remembered in 3 periods of time: - Classic Top Gear - Proper Top Gear - New Top Gear I think the while saga is one which the BBC would regret and could have dealt with far better. They could have used it to their advantage, they could have got Clarkson to do a sincere apology and explaining why he regrets his actions (remembering that a lot of children watched). They could have fined him or similar as a punishment and used it as a chance to educate. Instead they lost one their best TV programs and their biggest fans stopped watching and moved to 'The Grand Tour'. I loved 'Top Gear' and watched it every week from about 2004 to 2015. We had all the DVD boxsets in my family, etc but I just can't take to the new program. It was the presenters which made it work, not the format.
Still think the British Leyland segment and the cheap supercars for under £10,000 were the 2 best they ever did. The US trip was by far the best special they ever did.
I wonder what would happen if Clarkson, May and Hammond went back to Top Gear? I think it'd seem bizarre now, but it'd be interesting to see how that unfolded.
So long Top Gear there were so many good times Clarkson, Hammond and May made so many memorable moments through it all... I can't imagine a world without them... just yet.
I enjoyed watching your three-part production. I’ve been watching since the old days of Noel Edmonds and William Woollard, when it was tucked away on BBC Two on a Thursday evening at 8.30pm I think. So it was nice to see an overall view of the whole thing and the whole journey. Thanks for making it for us 👍
The Porsche used in the Patagonia special has the registration number H982FKL. This indicates that it was registered at the Maidstone Vehicle Registration Office in 1991. It's not unreasonable to assume that, since the show was based in the south east, that's where their cars would mainly be sourced. Furthermore, this car was in good condition, had done just 90,000 miles in its 23 years of existence at the time of the show and passed its last few MOTs with only minor advisories, indicating that before falling into Top Gear hands it had been well maintained. I haven't downloaded a full report (not spending a tenner just for a UA-cam comment!), but I would imagine it had had few owners and was well cared-for. Anyone who wishes to assert that the plates were changed for the show needs to provide evidence of the plate being changed - otherwise, we can assume that Top Gear was NOT guilty of baiting the Argentinians and that it was a pure coincidence that it contained 'FKL'.
The abrupt cancellation of Clarkson-era Top Gear drove a wedge through my life, sad but true. The Grand Tour was of some consolation, but it clearly required some tweaking to get back to a good format. Anyway it's pretty much impossible to recreate the magic of that Jezza-Hamster-Slow era, but we can just binge-rewatch the whole thing at home, and maybe hope the latest "The Grand Tour" episode still has some of that magic. Meanwhile also nice to watch documentaries like this which harken back to the show's once greatness.
I think it shows how good this thing has been when so many people have so many different favourite moments, it really had something for nearly everybody. By way of illustration, I have a really silly and obscure favourite moment, when James and Jeremy are in China and James says to Clarkson it’s a Trumpchi isn’t it, in response to Jeremys efforts not to actually use the silly name of the car. And where Jeremy is driving it and comments in the car , “ it rides well” - followed by a massive crash from the suspension as it goes over a pothole- “ most of the time“.
I think the funniest part of any of the TG shows was James May riding a frisky horse moaning about his plums and crying out, Ah. Ah. Ah. every step the horse took. I don't think I've ever laughed so much. 🤣
As an American fan who streamed Top Gear on Amazon I think the post-Clarkson presenters are complete rubbish. If the BBC found new presenters (i.e. more than just an awkward one) who actually knew anything about cars then I would probably watch. It appears the BBC wants these new presenters to "Make Britain Great Again" as opposed to scripting worthwhile comments on cars. There's something very "Not Cricket" about the way the BBC seems to treat the show in its current form: a lame Variety Show.
I'm Mexican I don't really remember when I started to watch it but my brother and I always where always looking to watch it on the internet because we couldn't see it on TV and we became huge fans of the show even when we didn't understand all the references sometimes we didn't even know who the guest were. We still watch them sometimes we love them. Great documental by the way
Top Gear was one of the consistently best tv shows for a long time. "They" wanted Clarkson gone since he was outspoken and popular. Too bad "They" don't realize he is a national treasure.
Weird conspiracy you've going on, when you can look up what got him fired. It was because Clarkson had turned up late to a hotel and was upset there was no hot food so started assaulting a producer, yes he assaulted someone over hot food, James and Richard pulled Clarkson off after Clarkson had been punching him for 30 seconds, again all over hot food. The producer didn't call the BBC in fact he drove himself to hospital. Clarkson then told higher ups what happened, which they had no clue had happened and had to the only normal thing when you have such an unstable person under your employ which is fire him and they were exceptionally lenient not getting police involved. The producer he assaulted didn't press charges either. I like Clarkson but the BBC couldn't do anything and the fact it took them so long to deliberate over something this simple proves they really didn't want to get rid of him.
@@Alex-cw3rz considering the way other celebrities act (and get away with it) on a regular basis, I'm'a call bullshit on that, yo, and point to "The Grand Tour's" success and the ratings collapse of Top Gear after the firing. Clarkson likely wanted more money than BBC wanted to pay and they didn't think they really NEEDED him. Such decisions tend to be office politics, which are often divorced from good judgement or fiduciary responsibility. it's also a lot of what we DO NOT know about the incident-a real assault is grounds for lawsuits, and Clarkson was rather a fat pig to stick, if it could be proven sufficiently in civil court (or if there were an actual legal leg to stand on). Litigation didn't happen, nobody was sued (and he would've been in a litigious country like Great Britain). So, probably the decision was made more by office politics at BBC2, than any firm grounds for dismissal.
@@danielball959 no, he got fired because he assaulted someone, you can look into it, instead making up a conspiracy theory that doesn't make sense, seen as Clarkson was constantly trying to amend the relationship, as were the BBC, however simple protocol is you can't assault colleges. Stop having some fantasy about the court case and actually look into it, James, Richard, Jeremy, the entire crew and hotel staff saw it happen, in what world would that be a hard case, it's one of the easiest cases I've heard in my entire life. Not many cases involve dozens of witnesses, which included Clarksons best friends who said it was assault. It was an open and shut case, the producer Clarkson attacked just didn't want to press charges. And your last sentence, just shows you haven't looked into the case at all, he assaulted a man for 30 seconds with over a dozen witnesses including his best friends who all said it happened. The person Clarkson attacked, didn't even want to tell the BBC. Clarkson was the one who told them, so the silly idea it was office politics is laughed at, by that alone. I like Clarkson but what he did was stupid, juvinile and untenable, he was lucky he assaulted someone so loyal to the show. If Clarkson hadn't said anything he'd have not been fired.
@@Alex-cw3rz Don't get me wrong, I"m not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it's not the FUNCTIONAL reason he was fired. It was simply a convenient one to use to terminate a contract that was 'Getting expensive' and to 'get rid of a Diva'. If you've ever worked in a corporate environment you'd know that's a consistent thing with these kinds of firings.
@@danielball959 so prey tell what is the procedure when an employee in a corporate environment assaults another, is it slap on the wrist, unless they don't like the person, which is the opposite of Clarkson who was well liked by the higher ups, again making your point utterly nonsensical. Because in any normal corporate environment, like the ones I've worked in, you get fired on the spot escorted of the premises and more than likely straight into a police car. In this case it took them weeks and no police involvement. Again riddle me this how is it that they used this as an excuse to fire him, yet deliberated over it, for an exterordionary length of time... Now Daniel seen as you've shifted the goalposts so far you have rescinded everything you said in your last comment, please delete them or edit them, as you are spreading misinformation.
It's funny everyone says Clarksons Top Gear, which it obviously is, but Andy Wilman was the brains behind it, some of the filming is awesome, the Ken Block one in the desert is the prime example. You see in the Grand Tour just how good Wilman and his crew are behind the camera. I'm not sure Top Gear or Clarkson would have made it this big without him?
9:04 *"Top Gear" never the same since Jeremy's [&Co] Departure - Clarkson could get an 50 Million audience Worldwide pulling up **-horseradish-** carrots on an allotment !*
What irritates me about the Patagonia Special is the fact that no one mentioned how well the Lotus survived the trip . All three cars took a beating but for some reason the Lotus , unlike it's bad reputation , survived and sometimes outperformed its co presenters cars . If there is a good Lotus out there that's worth every penny spent on it .....it's somewhere in Argentina right now with some lucky shmo who got it for free .
Dude, if you're going to read a text over some photo footage you could at the very least take your time and do it properly. Not record the first take and just post that. The second half of this video it's quite bad on this score.
Thank you for this excellent documentary. Strangely I found the cheap car - such cheaper to produce I guess - episodes the best. For some reason I found the expensive sports cars episodes a bit over the top, sometimes boring and hard to relate to. I too found Seasons 21 and 22 probably the best of all. That ambulance challenge is just so hilarious! The one with the Nova, Golf and Fiesta in the supermarket another highlight. On the number plate in Patagonia controversy, everyone who knows the British number plate system must have been in disbelieve how dumb the protestors were. H stands for 1991 and the KL at the end is one of the identifiers for Kent (Maidstone) and indeed the car is listed as first registered on 30th May 1991 in Kent. In UK reg plates stay with the cars when they are sold. Therefore when the Top Gear team bought the car the H982 FKL reg plate was already on it for 13 years! And as is said the Porsche 928 GT is extremely rare in Britain. There was maybe not even a handful of cars to chose from and the one they got had its original number plate since 13 years. This was not only very obviously non-intentional, they even would have had to go through quite some bureaucracy to change it. So it is very clear who where the dumbarses in this case. The original owner of that car hardly intended to annoy the Patagonians and the car carried this H982 FKL number plate already since 13 years when Top Gear got it. This really is a case these victims acted like victims because they desparately wanted to be victims. Nobody had a problem with them, nopbody tried to annoy them, but the way these Patagonians acted, when Top Gear wanted to show us a beautiful country, it's population showed us it is a very stupid country.
Honestly, I hear people state stats of the current top gear still surviving, but even if it is holding, unless they can pull off such a beautiful play between hosts again, I think Clarkson era Top Gear will be the thing everyone remembers and thinks of, and people only check current Top Gear to see how bad the show has become right before going back and watching old clips.
I think it's good that Richard and James quit when Clarkson was outed because I feel if Hammond had died after the crash, James and Jeremy would have quit, those 3 come in a package deal, you can't split them up
Interesting to see what seasons appeal the most to an obviously younger viewer. I think new top gear peaked at around season 10 with some good bits in S12 but after that it was just repeating itself. Going back, I've been watching old TG and Clarkson of course was quite prominent there and I really do see the same jokes said on old TG like almost 10 years before new TG. So I can understand that viewrers older than me (gen X and older folk) kinda thought Clarkson was a bit played out to begin with. But his career in journalism and presenting is just so vast, it spans through multiple cultural generations. I would wager the oldest folk who viewed new TG still thought WW2 was as far away as the 70s are to a person who is just about of age right now. But the guy on the TV still remains. Also Clarkson's farming show was just great. Less scripting, more real interaction.
Thank you for making this potted history, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure Clarkson's time would be described as 'accidental', have you also read his books? Have you considered making a full length version of this documentary? With a few tiny script tweaks and slowing it down a bit, it could become so much bigger :)
I absolutely enjoyed your documentary, but I have to say: There are much, muuuuch higher resolution photos of their DVD and Season covers on the internet. You do a pretty good job of grabbing high quality stills, but some of your photos look like they were taken from 2004 with a flip phone.
I'll always miss top gear. It was the first show I really got into as a child, looked forward to it coming out and watched the repeats on Dave. There was no show like it, and there never will be. I felt the show was starting to wain a bit during the last few series, they were too scripted and overdone. The golden age was 2007-2013 really, I think the British cars bit was kinda the day it died. The grand tour is good, but it doesn't have that dry, gritty humour that was the main reason people watched TG. My favourite series was in the summer of 2010, if I remember rightly it was 1) James going up a volcano and jezza in his reliant robin in Rotherham 2) saloon cars in Germany 3) the supercars when they did the wedding car service 4) the home made motorhomes. Watching it was the funniest hour of my life. I was crying with laughter the whole way through the episode. 5) was a tribute to ayrton senna, a good informative episode and the Tom cruise Cameron Diaz one 6) the old British sports cars exploring the British car industry. To be honest this series was perfect, nothing ever topped it. At a time in my life when it was so funny. I will really miss the show, but all good things must come to an end. Great documentary btw, I hope it makes you enough money to buy a better mic, lol. Keep it up
Punching anyone (not within the framework of self-defense) is the same for Clarkson as it is for everyone else: illegal. Accordingly the BBC had to do something. But that's where my sympathy for the BBC ends, and the overall anger begins. At the time that happened in early 2015, TopGear was earning so much money that it underwrote several other shows on the BBC. It's viewership worldwide roughly equaled the population of my country; the United States at some 300 + Million. Now here in lies the reason the BBC royally screwed up: they fired one of the most popular people they ever put on television by only considering one factor - the fact that he punched someone (broke the law) By contrast, a U.S. Channel that's publicly traded would have looked at two things simultaneously: TG's global popularity and Titanic revenue stream, & Clarkson breaking the most commonly known criminal code in the world - Assault [and Battery]. Knowing the ruthlessness that comes with having to answer to shareholders, the better decision (in my view) would have prevailed. Clarkson would pay a 1 million dollar fine to the network, which would then be paid to Oisin Tymon as compensation. He would be suspended for 2 episodes and when returning would have to publicly apologize. Tymon would be 1 million dollars richer (Clarkson would pay the tax) and the world's most popular car show would continue entertaining hundreds of millions of people around the world. But no, thanks to the BBC and their (fill in the blank criticism) we have the "Amazon Past-Their Prime" version. It's not the same thing - still nice to see them together but it's clear that whole experience aged them faster than what would have happened if that show was left alone to follow it's organic trail into the annals of television entertainment history.
I believed when it happened, and still feel it's true .... that was done deliberately. The 'trio' wanted away from BBC and Amazon was there. They needed a way to make not renewing their contracts seem like they weren't abandoning their audience. An audience they planned to take with them. That it was a producer him 'punched' and the executive producer quit with them and they all paraded straight to Amazon ... and no assault charges were ever pressed ... makes me wonder just how much Oisin Tymon banked for that little bop on the beak.
@@hydewhyte4364 Extremely interesting! I agree it does kind-of play that way. But other people in the UK have told me via comments on YT that Clarkson was making ridiculous money & if that's true, it's almost hard to believe he'd wanna give that up...especially if he knew in advance that going w/Amazon would mean a lot more time away from home...let alone England. Either way that is very tantalizing theory! I like it.
None of these 3 vids even mentions the Bolivia special - the absolute best one ever made. Vietnam is #2. And also, the BBC producers don't give AF about the 7 million British viewers - its a global show, 300+ million is what they look a, 7-8 Million.
It wasn't just the trio and Wilman that left Top Gear to join the Grand Tour. I think most of the production crew also left. Which might go to show how overblown the "fracas" was.
The best segment they ever did was Clarkson and May driving around in peugot's pretending to be clueless senior citizens, crashing into everything, its the hardest I ever laughed at anything they ever did and it was a pretty simple segment which had no challenges, no celebrities and not even Hammond involved. It never got funnier than that.
What episode is it?
@@Skeletomania 5th episode from series 22
@@Skeletomania series 22 episode 5, the funny segment is loaded on youtube though if you just want the one Im talking about ua-cam.com/video/9TnGjq9mWSI/v-deo.html
MANIAC!!
@Dr Lugz she entered at a good point
for me, it's not about the show, it's about watching these 3 friends fuck around on camera, and im happy to see them do that no matter how good or bad it ends up being
Exactly. After Season 9, it became less about the cars, and more about the personalities. That's what made it succeed. Take away the personalities, you take away the heart of the show.
agreed every once in a while you put some people together and they have such good chemistry together you almost feel like they are your friends
As Richard Hammond put it "We're on the cutting edge of cocking about."
The camaraderie is definitely the main selling point. Or, more often, the conflict. But it's fun watching them interact no matter what.
here, here - I couldn't agree more
To this day Clarkson, May, and Hammond are the most entertaining trio on television. I stream the old Top Gear regularly although episodes do seem to be disappearing. Shame.
They’re all available thru Amazon.
All there solo programms are fine too.
Watch James May cook? Sure why not
Watch Jeremy farming? Sure why not (and what a show it was it broke ALL the Amazon series records)
@@augormasterson9312 not in Germany :/
@@Sazuro98 then use a vpn
I've managed to find every single episode and will never delete them.
My favourite Top Gear episode was the Polar special. By far it seemed to be the most real episode, and what they achieved is no small feat. The tone during the trip suggested that they realised they genuinely could be in serious danger if they were not careful, and this shone through as authenticity for the episode. 10/10
Plus the fact that they royally pissed off the rules and regs gestapo by daring to have a GnT whilst operating a vehicle within 500 miles of someone that they *might* crash in to makes me happy :)
One of my favourite moments from the Africa special….
*Jeremy is sitting on his bed in the “hotel” and peels back the sheet to reveal a large brown stain*
Clarkson “Oh my god………HAMMOND!”
*Cuts to Hammond looking rather sheepish in his room*
There is no Top Gear without Clarkson
What made the Patagonia special so good? The answer: salty Argentinians
Just made it through all three videos, thanks for this brief prenestation and history.
I remember being very pissed off when the show ended. Re-watched the whole series a couple of years back, and when I got to the last season, with just May and Hammond saying goodbye at the end it was legitimately difficult for a fan of the series to see it end.
Thankfully The Grand Tour and Drivetribe are still a thing, but even Clarkson teared up at the end of season three of the Grand Tour. I barely watch TV programs, but damn what a journey Top Gear was.
I always knew Clarkson and the gang would come back in some way or another, just maybe not with cars or on the BBC. I was more thinking how stupid it was for the BBC to fire him.
This is an immensely underrated little documentary. Very well done.
Thank you!
The chaps will be forever a content mine. I could watch a bit about May explaining to most boring of things, and i watch it multiple times.
I believe that one of the problems with the later Top Gear shows was that they were cut from their full hour to about 45 minutes in order for the shows to "fit" American commercials in. Top gear is not the only show to suffer from this. The world has lost a lot of fun content by BBC's changes to accommodate the US broadcasters.
No they weren't cut on the original BBC broadcast, maybe the repeats on your TV network cuts them, like here in the Netherlands they often cut out the news. In the episode with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz they cut out the Ayrton Senna tribute at the end, but it's all there in the original episode.
@@KevinKickChannel Well, I'm sorry to say that you are just incorrect. I watch Top Gear on BBC, and the older shows were close to an hour long, sometimes a bit longer. When they started to show them on BBC America, they would actually run the entire show, taking about an hour and 20 minutes. Now, the BBC Shows (which I can't stand, by the way) only broadcast for about 45 minutes on BBC iPlayer. This same thing happened with Doctor Who and various other BBC shows I watch.
don't know how I ended up watching a 3 part documentary on top gear but I enjoyed it! Thanks for making this! so much nostalgia
Ditto on that one. I found it interesting though.
Amen to that
@9:55 The gigantic elephant in the room was a nice touch 👌🤣 I thought it was hilarious and typical of them to tackle the issue of JCs absence with humour.
You skipped over the part where Hammond starts eating his car? He just randomly rips off his sun visor and eats it! How can we not acknowledge that?
That moment totally caught me off guard and I thought it was utter genius. Totally unexpected surrealist humour
Lmak it shows what a long boring drive will do lol
@@seanpruitt6801 Nah, he's just a very hungry hamster.
Great series discussing the show. I wil always have a deep affection for the Clarkson Era of Top Gear. It was rediculous and wonderful.
Series 22 is the final series, full stop. The show died when Clarkson, Hammond and May left. Top Gear was entirely his project. RIP.
For me it was the polar special that I will always remember most.
For me, Top Gear ended in 2015, when Clarkson, Hammond, May, and Wilman left to start The Grand Tour. The BBC then created a lame copycat show, also called 'Top Gear', but now populated with ridiculous imposters who tried to copy the format of the authentic Top Gear. (but failed).
The Aston Martin V12 Vantage review was one of the most beautiful pieces of British cinematography.
This isn't a debate point, it's just a fact.
Hey thanks for this short documentary. Really well put together.
Rudyard (the pink bear from the Burma special) is my favourite Top Gear one-shot character. I found the scene where Clarkson ‘feeds’ it jam to be both humorous and heartwarming.
I was rather late to the TG party - I didn't start watching until 2015 - but I've since watched all Clarkson era episodes including his DVD specials and some of the "old" TG content and I always have this strange feeling of nostalgia while watching, like we've really lost something special that we're never going to get back.
Grand Tour?
getting fired from the BBC was the best thing that happened to Clarkson and quitting was the best for Hammond and May. They make way more money now and have more shows lined up
I did always appreciate the subtlety of the elephant in the studio in that last episode.
Amazing quality of video. You should do a 4th episode on TGT. I’d certainly tune in, subscribed and turned on notifications so hopefully will see it sometime in the future!
Elephant in the room. Classic Top Gear gag :)
Absolutely loved the ambulance episode. Cried laughing so many times during it.
It’s hard to say the Clarkson era is over. The three started a whole new show.
Thank you for this documentary. A great trip down memory lane and really interesting.
I think most people will forever be remembered in 3 periods of time:
- Classic Top Gear
- Proper Top Gear
- New Top Gear
I think the while saga is one which the BBC would regret and could have dealt with far better. They could have used it to their advantage, they could have got Clarkson to do a sincere apology and explaining why he regrets his actions (remembering that a lot of children watched). They could have fined him or similar as a punishment and used it as a chance to educate. Instead they lost one their best TV programs and their biggest fans stopped watching and moved to 'The Grand Tour'. I loved 'Top Gear' and watched it every week from about 2004 to 2015. We had all the DVD boxsets in my family, etc but I just can't take to the new program. It was the presenters which made it work, not the format.
Still think the British Leyland segment and the cheap supercars for under £10,000 were the 2 best they ever did. The US trip was by far the best special they ever did.
Great Doco. What bugs me about the TG reruns on Amazon prime is that all the good music which aired on the BBC originally run episodes is removed.
The grand tour is great but what made top gear spectacular were the cheap episodes. I miss when they used to run around albania etc
"I went on the internet, and this was on it"..... always mad me chuckle.
Thanks for the history. I always wondered how so huge an ubiquitous a show became what it was
2:58 Thank you for that “… In the world”
bolivia special was always my favourite
the van challenge was probably the first episode that made me laugh hard and the vietnam special was one of my favourite specials
I wonder what would happen if Clarkson, May and Hammond went back to Top Gear? I think it'd seem bizarre now, but it'd be interesting to see how that unfolded.
So long Top Gear
there were so many good times
Clarkson, Hammond and May made so many memorable moments through it all...
I can't imagine a world without them... just yet.
I enjoyed watching your three-part production.
I’ve been watching since the old days of Noel Edmonds and William Woollard, when it was tucked away on BBC Two on a Thursday evening at 8.30pm I think.
So it was nice to see an overall view of the whole thing and the whole journey.
Thanks for making it for us 👍
"The then lead singer of AC/DC, Brian Johnston"
...do you know something we don't about the accadacca line-up?
This was made a couple of years ago when they were touring with axl rose.
The Porsche used in the Patagonia special has the registration number H982FKL. This indicates that it was registered at the Maidstone Vehicle Registration Office in 1991. It's not unreasonable to assume that, since the show was based in the south east, that's where their cars would mainly be sourced. Furthermore, this car was in good condition, had done just 90,000 miles in its 23 years of existence at the time of the show and passed its last few MOTs with only minor advisories, indicating that before falling into Top Gear hands it had been well maintained. I haven't downloaded a full report (not spending a tenner just for a UA-cam comment!), but I would imagine it had had few owners and was well cared-for. Anyone who wishes to assert that the plates were changed for the show needs to provide evidence of the plate being changed - otherwise, we can assume that Top Gear was NOT guilty of baiting the Argentinians and that it was a pure coincidence that it contained 'FKL'.
The abrupt cancellation of Clarkson-era Top Gear drove a wedge through my life, sad but true. The Grand Tour was of some consolation, but it clearly required some tweaking to get back to a good format. Anyway it's pretty much impossible to recreate the magic of that Jezza-Hamster-Slow era, but we can just binge-rewatch the whole thing at home, and maybe hope the latest "The Grand Tour" episode still has some of that magic. Meanwhile also nice to watch documentaries like this which harken back to the show's once greatness.
I think it shows how good this thing has been when so many people have so many different favourite moments, it really had something for nearly everybody.
By way of illustration,
I have a really silly and obscure favourite moment, when James and Jeremy are in China and James says to Clarkson it’s a Trumpchi isn’t it, in response to Jeremys efforts not to actually use the silly name of the car.
And where Jeremy is driving it and comments in the car , “ it rides well” - followed by a massive crash from the suspension as it goes over a pothole- “ most of the time“.
The tv channel Dave is one of the best channels
I think the funniest part of any of the TG shows was James May riding a frisky horse moaning about his plums and crying out, Ah. Ah. Ah. every step the horse took. I don't think I've ever laughed so much. 🤣
watching this 3 part doc is by far better then any top gear made nowa days.
As an American fan who streamed Top Gear on Amazon I think the post-Clarkson presenters are complete rubbish. If the BBC found new presenters (i.e. more than just an awkward one) who actually knew anything about cars then I would probably watch. It appears the BBC wants these new presenters to "Make Britain Great Again" as opposed to scripting worthwhile comments on cars. There's something very "Not Cricket" about the way the BBC seems to treat the show in its current form: a lame Variety Show.
Nice documentary for anyone interested in the series. Great effort!
I'm Mexican I don't really remember when I started to watch it but my brother and I always where always looking to watch it on the internet because we couldn't see it on TV and we became huge fans of the show even when we didn't understand all the references sometimes we didn't even know who the guest were. We still watch them sometimes we love them. Great documental by the way
Top Gear was one of the consistently best tv shows for a long time. "They" wanted Clarkson gone since he was outspoken and popular. Too bad "They" don't realize he is a national treasure.
Weird conspiracy you've going on, when you can look up what got him fired. It was because Clarkson had turned up late to a hotel and was upset there was no hot food so started assaulting a producer, yes he assaulted someone over hot food, James and Richard pulled Clarkson off after Clarkson had been punching him for 30 seconds, again all over hot food. The producer didn't call the BBC in fact he drove himself to hospital. Clarkson then told higher ups what happened, which they had no clue had happened and had to the only normal thing when you have such an unstable person under your employ which is fire him and they were exceptionally lenient not getting police involved. The producer he assaulted didn't press charges either.
I like Clarkson but the BBC couldn't do anything and the fact it took them so long to deliberate over something this simple proves they really didn't want to get rid of him.
@@Alex-cw3rz considering the way other celebrities act (and get away with it) on a regular basis, I'm'a call bullshit on that, yo, and point to "The Grand Tour's" success and the ratings collapse of Top Gear after the firing. Clarkson likely wanted more money than BBC wanted to pay and they didn't think they really NEEDED him. Such decisions tend to be office politics, which are often divorced from good judgement or fiduciary responsibility. it's also a lot of what we DO NOT know about the incident-a real assault is grounds for lawsuits, and Clarkson was rather a fat pig to stick, if it could be proven sufficiently in civil court (or if there were an actual legal leg to stand on). Litigation didn't happen, nobody was sued (and he would've been in a litigious country like Great Britain).
So, probably the decision was made more by office politics at BBC2, than any firm grounds for dismissal.
@@danielball959 no, he got fired because he assaulted someone, you can look into it, instead making up a conspiracy theory that doesn't make sense, seen as Clarkson was constantly trying to amend the relationship, as were the BBC, however simple protocol is you can't assault colleges.
Stop having some fantasy about the court case and actually look into it, James, Richard, Jeremy, the entire crew and hotel staff saw it happen, in what world would that be a hard case, it's one of the easiest cases I've heard in my entire life. Not many cases involve dozens of witnesses, which included Clarksons best friends who said it was assault. It was an open and shut case, the producer Clarkson attacked just didn't want to press charges.
And your last sentence, just shows you haven't looked into the case at all, he assaulted a man for 30 seconds with over a dozen witnesses including his best friends who all said it happened. The person Clarkson attacked, didn't even want to tell the BBC. Clarkson was the one who told them, so the silly idea it was office politics is laughed at, by that alone. I like Clarkson but what he did was stupid, juvinile and untenable, he was lucky he assaulted someone so loyal to the show. If Clarkson hadn't said anything he'd have not been fired.
@@Alex-cw3rz Don't get me wrong, I"m not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it's not the FUNCTIONAL reason he was fired. It was simply a convenient one to use to terminate a contract that was 'Getting expensive' and to 'get rid of a Diva'. If you've ever worked in a corporate environment you'd know that's a consistent thing with these kinds of firings.
@@danielball959 so prey tell what is the procedure when an employee in a corporate environment assaults another, is it slap on the wrist, unless they don't like the person, which is the opposite of Clarkson who was well liked by the higher ups, again making your point utterly nonsensical. Because in any normal corporate environment, like the ones I've worked in, you get fired on the spot escorted of the premises and more than likely straight into a police car. In this case it took them weeks and no police involvement. Again riddle me this how is it that they used this as an excuse to fire him, yet deliberated over it, for an exterordionary length of time...
Now Daniel seen as you've shifted the goalposts so far you have rescinded everything you said in your last comment, please delete them or edit them, as you are spreading misinformation.
The Reliant Robin rocket and the first amphibious special are the best for me. Both were ambitious but rubbish.
12:12 very nice. Thank you for this documentary
I really liked this documentary, hope you keep the good work!
That last episode is so eerie, the lack of music and audience just makes it so creepy in my opinion
It's funny everyone says Clarksons Top Gear, which it obviously is, but Andy Wilman was the brains behind it, some of the filming is awesome, the Ken Block one in the desert is the prime example. You see in the Grand Tour just how good Wilman and his crew are behind the camera. I'm not sure Top Gear or Clarkson would have made it this big without him?
that classic cars bit was one of the best ever
One fact that people don’t want to admit is that the Clarkson era Top Gear was dying before the ‘fracas.’
9:04 *"Top Gear" never the same since Jeremy's [&Co] Departure - Clarkson could get an 50 Million audience Worldwide pulling up **-horseradish-** carrots on an allotment !*
He basically has.. have you not seen Clarksons farm?
@@bombercountyblues Yes of course !
Tonight. I loose my job. Hammond and May quit their jobs and there is a star in a reasonably priced car.
What a really nice mini-doc
What irritates me about the Patagonia Special is the fact that no one mentioned how well the Lotus survived the trip . All three cars took a beating but for some reason the Lotus , unlike it's bad reputation , survived and sometimes outperformed its co presenters cars . If there is a good Lotus out there that's worth every penny spent on it .....it's somewhere in Argentina right now with some lucky shmo who got it for free .
The last episode of top gear is really shocking
"In the world" Nice Clarkson imitation there!
Dude, if you're going to read a text over some photo footage you could at the very least take your time and do it properly. Not record the first take and just post that. The second half of this video it's quite bad on this score.
I’ve had 2 2002 WRX wagons because of the Africa Special, including my current car!
Nice documentary!
TopGear without these 3 is not TopGear. They made the show what it was.
Africa special was fantastic, but the finale was lackluster.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the middle east special that ended with Stig being the son of God
Slow down, Ultimate Video Man! Great content, tho!
Thank you for this excellent documentary.
Strangely I found the cheap car - such cheaper to produce I guess - episodes the best. For some reason I found the expensive sports cars episodes a bit over the top, sometimes boring and hard to relate to. I too found Seasons 21 and 22 probably the best of all. That ambulance challenge is just so hilarious! The one with the Nova, Golf and Fiesta in the supermarket another highlight.
On the number plate in Patagonia controversy, everyone who knows the British number plate system must have been in disbelieve how dumb the protestors were. H stands for 1991 and the KL at the end is one of the identifiers for Kent (Maidstone) and indeed the car is listed as first registered on 30th May 1991 in Kent. In UK reg plates stay with the cars when they are sold. Therefore when the Top Gear team bought the car the H982 FKL reg plate was already on it for 13 years! And as is said the Porsche 928 GT is extremely rare in Britain. There was maybe not even a handful of cars to chose from and the one they got had its original number plate since 13 years. This was not only very obviously non-intentional, they even would have had to go through quite some bureaucracy to change it.
So it is very clear who where the dumbarses in this case. The original owner of that car hardly intended to annoy the Patagonians and the car carried this H982 FKL number plate already since 13 years when Top Gear got it. This really is a case these victims acted like victims because they desparately wanted to be victims. Nobody had a problem with them, nopbody tried to annoy them, but the way these Patagonians acted, when Top Gear wanted to show us a beautiful country, it's population showed us it is a very stupid country.
Wow! great series! Very entertaining to watch!
Honestly, I hear people state stats of the current top gear still surviving, but even if it is holding, unless they can pull off such a beautiful play between hosts again, I think Clarkson era Top Gear will be the thing everyone remembers and thinks of, and people only check current Top Gear to see how bad the show has become right before going back and watching old clips.
I think it's good that Richard and James quit when Clarkson was outed because I feel if Hammond had died after the crash, James and Jeremy would have quit, those 3 come in a package deal, you can't split them up
Interesting to see what seasons appeal the most to an obviously younger viewer. I think new top gear peaked at around season 10 with some good bits in S12 but after that it was just repeating itself. Going back, I've been watching old TG and Clarkson of course was quite prominent there and I really do see the same jokes said on old TG like almost 10 years before new TG. So I can understand that viewrers older than me (gen X and older folk) kinda thought Clarkson was a bit played out to begin with. But his career in journalism and presenting is just so vast, it spans through multiple cultural generations. I would wager the oldest folk who viewed new TG still thought WW2 was as far away as the 70s are to a person who is just about of age right now. But the guy on the TV still remains. Also Clarkson's farming show was just great. Less scripting, more real interaction.
Carr had a monster laptime didn't he?
say what you want about season 21 it was pretty enjoyable, the 80's hot hatchback episode was very good
Good episode.. only all 3 cars were actually early 90s models.
Patagonia put the nail in the Clarkson era
Thank you for making this potted history, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm not sure Clarkson's time would be described as 'accidental', have you also read his books? Have you considered making a full length version of this documentary? With a few tiny script tweaks and slowing it down a bit, it could become so much bigger :)
is it just me or is there a slope on that bridge?
Post-Clarkson era Top Gear just isn't good. I'd rather watch old Top Gear on UA-cam over and over than see the new Top Gear
What happened to the Polar Special???
Very good! I would watch more top gear content similar to this. Though, you could work on audio quality a bit
i love the channel Dave
am I the only one that saw the series from 19 onwards being more colourful? colours are far more saturated from that point
I absolutely enjoyed your documentary, but I have to say: There are much, muuuuch higher resolution photos of their DVD and Season covers on the internet. You do a pretty good job of grabbing high quality stills, but some of your photos look like they were taken from 2004 with a flip phone.
2:57 I see what you did there
Nice documentary, thanks!
I'll always miss top gear. It was the first show I really got into as a child, looked forward to it coming out and watched the repeats on Dave. There was no show like it, and there never will be.
I felt the show was starting to wain a bit during the last few series, they were too scripted and overdone. The golden age was 2007-2013 really, I think the British cars bit was kinda the day it died. The grand tour is good, but it doesn't have that dry, gritty humour that was the main reason people watched TG.
My favourite series was in the summer of 2010, if I remember rightly it was
1) James going up a volcano and jezza in his reliant robin in Rotherham
2) saloon cars in Germany
3) the supercars when they did the wedding car service
4) the home made motorhomes. Watching it was the funniest hour of my life. I was crying with laughter the whole way through the episode.
5) was a tribute to ayrton senna, a good informative episode and the Tom cruise Cameron Diaz one
6) the old British sports cars exploring the British car industry.
To be honest this series was perfect, nothing ever topped it. At a time in my life when it was so funny. I will really miss the show, but all good things must come to an end.
Great documentary btw, I hope it makes you enough money to buy a better mic, lol. Keep it up
That one series... I remember waiting for it to come out as a child, I was so excited to see it. And I absolutely agree about the 2007-2013 golden era
Great series, well done! Could do with better sound and picture quality though, but the actual content was very interesting.
The Africa Special is the best one.
Africa Special is the best special of Top Gear.
Punching anyone (not within the framework of self-defense) is the same for Clarkson as it is for everyone else: illegal.
Accordingly the BBC had to do something. But that's where my sympathy for the BBC ends, and the overall anger begins.
At the time that happened in early 2015, TopGear was earning so much money that it underwrote several other shows on the BBC.
It's viewership worldwide roughly equaled the population of my country; the United States at some 300 + Million.
Now here in lies the reason the BBC royally screwed up: they fired one of the most popular people they ever put on television
by only considering one factor - the fact that he punched someone (broke the law)
By contrast, a U.S. Channel that's publicly traded would have looked at two things simultaneously: TG's global popularity and Titanic revenue stream, & Clarkson breaking the most commonly known criminal code in the world - Assault [and Battery].
Knowing the ruthlessness that comes with having to answer to shareholders, the better decision (in my view) would have prevailed.
Clarkson would pay a 1 million dollar fine to the network, which would then be paid to Oisin Tymon as compensation.
He would be suspended for 2 episodes and when returning would have to publicly apologize.
Tymon would be 1 million dollars richer (Clarkson would pay the tax) and the world's most popular car show would continue entertaining hundreds of millions of people around the world.
But no, thanks to the BBC and their (fill in the blank criticism) we have the "Amazon Past-Their Prime" version.
It's not the same thing - still nice to see them together but it's clear that whole experience aged them faster than what would have happened if that show was left alone to follow it's organic trail into the annals of television entertainment history.
I believed when it happened, and still feel it's true .... that was done deliberately. The 'trio' wanted away from BBC and Amazon was there. They needed a way to make not renewing their contracts seem like they weren't abandoning their audience. An audience they planned to take with them. That it was a producer him 'punched' and the executive producer quit with them and they all paraded straight to Amazon ... and no assault charges were ever pressed ... makes me wonder just how much Oisin Tymon banked for that little bop on the beak.
@@hydewhyte4364 Extremely interesting! I agree it does kind-of play that way. But other people in the UK have told me via comments on YT that Clarkson was making ridiculous money & if that's true, it's almost hard to believe he'd wanna give that up...especially if he knew in advance that going w/Amazon would mean
a lot more time away from home...let alone England. Either way that is very tantalizing theory! I like it.
None of these 3 vids even mentions the Bolivia special - the absolute best one ever made. Vietnam is #2. And also, the BBC producers don't give AF about the 7 million British viewers - its a global show, 300+ million is what they look a, 7-8 Million.
If there was I dimensional transport machine I'd travel to a dimension where the og trio where still presenting the show and live all my days their
There's still a Top Gear?
Ugh can't watch video, the audio is so poor, do you have to record in a echo chamber?
It wasn't just the trio and Wilman that left Top Gear to join the Grand Tour. I think most of the production crew also left. Which might go to show how overblown the "fracas" was.
a lot of the production staff worked for a third party, and would actually help produce TG and TGT.
The new Era is utter rubbish I wish the Clarkson Era had continued