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Tiff Needell is not the only ex top gear presenter who has an opinion of the new Top Gear crew. Sue Baker, Top Gear presenter between 1980-1991 told The Telegraph, she’s in favor of the new group of presenters headed up by Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc. She pleads “Let’s bring it back to the cars! The cars should be stars, not the people, and they shouldn’t forget that.”
In fact, Baker is not a fan of the Top Gear show when it was under the watch of the silly trio: Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May. She likens the bunch to “Last of the Summer Wine on wheels” and the show was eventually “three middle-aged blokes rambling, so what happened was in a way fortunate,” referencing the firing of Jeremy Clarkson, when he punched producer Oisin Tymon in 2015.
Another Top Gear’s former presenter, Chris Goffey, also shares the same sentiment about the previous crew. “That rocked me back on my heels, I hope they get away from roaring around in circles, and feature more stuff about cars.” He continues saying “When it (the rebooted Top Gear) was first announced I thought it sounded pretty good. Chris Evans is well known and an astute businessman and Matt LeBlanc is a good addition, bringing American appeal.”
These Top Gear presenters are absolutely right about the show not being about cars anymore. The last time they made the cars the stars, the show got CANCELLED! Jeremy Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman pitched a new format that brought Top Gear back from the ashes, and it became a massive success.
Making a show solely about the cars will only appeal to auto enthusiasts, a small group of people, all things considered. To make a show successful it has to appeal to the masses and when it is lucky enough to be half of what Top Gear was, under the watch of the Boys, it has the right to exist for a very long time. So in the end car enthusiast can thank those people who made the show appeal to a larger demographic.
So when Chris Goffey says “It’s been going 40 years and has a life of its own. It will go on. It didn’t begin and end with Jeremy Clarkson,” I beg to differ, it totally began with Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson found a recipe that works and competes at a very high level in today’s entertainment landscape. As to whether it will end with Clarkson is highly doubtful. The new crew will try to maintain the format of the old show as much as possible because that’s what works. If the BBC tries to stray away from that successful format, they can expect the Top Gear show to become a 60 minute advertisement for The Still Very Much Untitled Clarkson Hammond May Amazon Prime Show Coming Autumn 2016.
(Source: The Telegraph)
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