Comments on: Jeremy Clarkson explains our addcition to speed.

Jeremy Clarkson explains our addcition to speed.

homodigitalis — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 12:43:10 -0800

The Century of Speed [Google Video] by Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear fame. Usually he reviews cars, writes nasty columns or does something stupid with vehicles, but this documentary is not just about cars ... it's about the speed of our modern lifes and his wife.

By: mrnutty

mrnutty — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:22:56 -0800

It's about the speed of his wife?

By: Debaser626

Debaser626 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:31:44 -0800

That second link about the Atom is freakin awesome. 0-60 in 2.9? At about $40,000, you can get twice the performance of a Ferrari Enzo...

By: Keith Talent

Keith Talent — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:42:50 -0800

Jezza married his doppelganger? Weird.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:57:19 -0800

Sorry, I know I'm supposed to like him and all (since I'm transplanted), but I think he's a hypocrite. After a career of railing against America & Americans, he's now moving his top rated show to the US. One word: sellout.

By: Lord_Pall

Lord_Pall — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:21:53 -0800

I thought he refused to live in the US, so the deal for that was scrapped.

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:21:59 -0800

The century of ~~speed~~ oil.

By: sfenders

sfenders — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:43:11 -0800

The Sun reports: American version of Top Gear has hit the skids – because Jeremy Clarkson has refused to live in the US. ... Top Gear managing director, Adam Waddell, said: "We don't comment on specific negotiations. Suffice to say, BBC Worldwide still has aspirations to take Top Gear to the US" Don't know why they'd feel the need to make a specifically American version. Would the audience really see such a big difference in setting fire to a trailer in Vermont instead of setting fire to a caravan in Dorset? I think this video demonstrates nicely that amusing as he sometimes is, Top Gear wouldn't be nearly as good if it were just Jeremy Clarkson's show.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:53:45 -0800

I heard the same thing Lord_Pall, which actually made me really happy. I don't think I could stomach the changes that they would have had to make to Top Gear to make it work in America. One word: sellout I've been watching Clarkson for a couple of years now, and I think it's safe to say that he has enough of a sense of humor about himself that he would willingly embrace the fact that he is a sellout. I mean, a season or two ago he made a point of shilling for every single Ford they reviewed on the chance that it might get him closer to buying one of the new GT40s. He reveled in the fact that he was doing it even though he was mocked mercilessly by Hammond and May.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:02:04 -0800

Good point, quin. At least his persona is more immediately recognisable as artificial and contrived for telly than, say, Gordon Ramsay's is. If he really did refuse to live in the US, then my estimation of him just rose several points.

By: quin

quin — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 15:56:34 -0800

A bit of searching gives me two different articles. This one says that he refused to go because it meant he would be away from his family and friends for four months out of the year. This (newer) one suggests that his bosses told him to suck it up. So there will most likely be an American Top Gear (ugh) and Clarkson is doing it under protest.

By: kaspen

kaspen — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:46:31 -0800

More underwhelmed on viewing than I'd hoped.

By: danny the boy

danny the boy — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:03:32 -0800

Didn't they already try Top Gear in the US? I remember watching the two or three episodes a year and a half ago. They basically took their filmed segments as is, and recorded new live-audience intros (but still with a UK audience), and restarted the lap board, as I guess they figured having a bunch of times already up there didn't make sense? It was pretty much the worst thing I had ever seen. Just awful. I thought the latest was that Top Gear is coming to BBC America, without any format changes? Or am I making that up? Top gear has gotten less and less awesome though. Maybe in preparation for the US market...

By: danny the boy

danny the boy — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:16:15 -0800

Oh and in the, I'm-an-American-who-likes-motorsport-but-has-no-one-to-talk-to-about-it-round-the-water-cooler, vein: where can I get my questions answered about WRC. Specifically, what's the real story behind the problems plaguing Petter and Subaru?

By: Kadin2048

Kadin2048 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:00:14 -0800

I've seen some Top Gear episodes in the US, run on either the Speed Network or Discovery, and they really butchered it. I think they cut stuff out -- seemingly at random -- in order to insert more commercials, and they always ran the shows out of order. I have little faith that they'll do any better if they made a 'real' US version, and a strong suspicion that they'd make it a lot worse. I'll stick to watching the actual BBC versions on Bittorrent.

By: Tacodog

Tacodog — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 03:02:18 -0800

Metafilter: my epiglottis is full of bees.

By: Devonian

Devonian — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 06:51:49 -0800

Rather sadly, the Lightning on the lawn was merely borrowed, and got sent back after filming to Wycombe Air Park from which it hailed. It's for sale now, though, for £20k. So JC could buy it, instead of only pretending to buy it. Of course, it's only television. And they never said otherwise. So why do we think that "hey, perhaps he really did that"? Like Top Gear, this programme presents fiction, slyly, as fact, alongside messages like "driving is more democratic than voting", and that's more interesting than J Clarkson getting his blocks off playing 3D video games. (Old Lightning joke: "You will see," said the engineering officer, "that the top engine is slightly offset from the bottom engine. This is to give the pilot somewhere to sit.")

By: quartzcity

quartzcity — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 11:36:55 -0800

Clarkson's documentaries about the Victoria Cross and WWII's Operation Chariot were a couple of the best war documentaries I've seen. I wished he did more of those than Top Gear.