- :
- 2008 Mazda5 5MT Sport w/ Popular Package
After five long years, Top Gear's American cousin debuts Sunday on the History Channel. You'll probably watch it anyway - but in the words of a very successful car guy: Is it any good?
Before we answer that question, I should beg your indulgence in noting that, yes, there are Top Gear ads all over this site and its sister and brother sites as well. That's why Ray asked me to review the show, as I have a certain distance, and besides, I think Ray might have fallen into the fan zone on this one.
Anyway. It's stretching the capabilities of understatement to say that the domestic edition of Top Gear has a great deal of work cut out for it. The original BBC production is a bona-fide sensation, a hit with people who don't even like cars. At its best, it's pitch-perfect, with the casual banter between the hosts, the high production values, and the obvious love of everything automotive combining into something really magic. It's lightning in a bottle, and there's really nothing else like it. Except now, of course, the History Channel is trying to make something just like it. And judging from the three episodes we saw, they certainly have their work cut out for them.
The premiere is going to be a little strange for most viewers. There's a bit of a touring-company feel to the whole thing, a vague sense of wedding-band cover-version, especially at first. The hosts for the U. S. show - in case you're one of the four or five enthusiasts who didn't apply and therefore don't know who got your dream job - are comedian Adam Ferrara, drift champ and stunt driver Tanner Foust, and Speed Channel guy Rutledge Wood, and initially I found myself wondering if they'd ever met previously, let alone spoken to one another. There's a Stig, too, but he's introduced in such a hapless manner that you're left wondering if the other hosts even understand his function; they sort of tell you he doesn't talk, and that's about it. "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" is now "Star In A Small Car," which is a Suzuki SX4 Sportback, rustled around their very own airport track by Buzz Aldrin in its maiden voyage after a rather wooden interview. And in the weirdest deja vu moment, the very first segment features Foust and Wood in a Viper being chased around a small Georgia town by a Cobra attack helicopter, a supposedly awesome thing we've all seen before and that seemed to be less a real TV show and more the work of incredibly well-financed and well-connected Top Gear re-enactors.
The good news is that it gets better. First, as the show goes on, the chemistry between the hosts improves by leaps and bounds. Rutledge Wood turns out to be a naturally funny guy, in a conversational sort of way, and starts to ease into his part faster than the others. Tanner Foust, the bona-fide driver of the group, actually seems comfortable with the others giving him a hard time, which will be a valuable job skill for him on this show. And Ferrara, who has the fewest car-guy credentials in the group, seems content to just hang out and almost never overplays the New York/New Jersey card.
[Jalopnik]
