what the fuck is that I'm afraid

If they're not confident in it I have to take a guess and say they didn't want to make it, but Amazon did. Just a guess though.

Oh neat, was wondering when it came back for a while now. I've never seen a program or other piece of media remotely as shilled against as The Grand Tour, especially by the MSM. Granted there was some discontent after the second episode aired, but most critics use that one episode as a crutch to base their entire opinion of the show on. People seem to forget that Top Gear was not at its best prior to the cancellation. The show was at its absolute zenith between S11 and S14, then it slowly started dropping in quality, or at least consistency. By S20 they could still knock it out the park every once in a while, but it was clear the shark had been jumped a long time ago (in TG's case, it was the bridge being burned at the end of the Indian Special) yet we continued to tune in each week out of tradition. When they left, the show became shit, and is slowly starting to stink so much that BBC may have no choice but to drop it entirely. All it is nowadays is a Redditor's wet fantasy with their favorite mystery meat sandnigger Chris Harris and a bunch of no-name losers. Never saw his performance but it's quite frankly a fucking joke they got Joey from Friends as a main presenter, someone with zero automotive journalism experience. Remember that for a good 25 years the show was literally the UK's version of Motorweek until they cancelled and rebooted it with Clarkson at the helm, with everyone who presented it in its final years going to Fifth Gear. They should do that again, except without the whole "reboot" part. Just end its suffering once and for all. I'm glad that a fourth season's in the pipeline, but disappointed that all signs point to it being the last we'll ever see of the trio. Best case scenario we get one final season after that, followed by a Special or two every year for the next 5 or so years. Worst case scenario they cut S4 short and that's the end of CHM as we know them. I just want to see them present Top Gear one last time. Fire (((Danny Cohen))) and have them switch the show off for good.

>>17577 Matt LeBlanc was however in the "star in a reasonably priced car" segment. IIRC top scorer also. That does give him some credence, though it wouldn't do him any good either way, since he had been set to replace people that were long-time friends with eachother, had good chemistry and were the face of the show for like 15 years. Even if he was a supreme actor and journalist, he wouldn't be able to pull it off. Though I didn't watch any episodes from the new series, I bet they are also afraid to pull off hot opinions. CHM did that because they could get away with it, it was their persona, but the newfag presenters probably had a reputation to uphold. The media would ridicule and crucify them if they said anything racist or controversial, ending their careers in an instant. And half the fun of CHM is smokin' hot opinions and banter.

My review after 3 episodes: First episode was great. Shades of that Bonneville Salt Flats episode of Top Gear from over a decade ago, yet they still kept the formula fresh. Lovely cars, interesting location, not too many skits. Glad to see they finally did away with the celeb segment altogether, though the format they introduced last season was better than SIARPC, it was still the weakest part of each episode. Columbia Special was all I'd hyped it up to be. They got away with loads of shit that probably would have got their asses cancelled several times over on the BBC, from calling the Wrangler a faggot's car, to showing a creatura actually fucking a donkey in the ass, to photographing a dead, decaying Condor up close. South America seems to be their continent. I'd say it's up there with the Bolivia Special, though I don't think anything could ever top Vietnam. Unfortunately, the fourth episode was awful. Definitely one of the worst of the show so far. From the moment we got dropped into the Middle Ages I know it was going to be one of those episodes. The tiny statue for Hammond did get a chuckle out of me to say the least. On the whole, quality fluctuation for TGT has been all over the place, it does seem they've fallen victim to the "…Goes Hollywood!" meme wherein a ridiculous budget magically makes everything better, going back all the way to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Still don't regret the show's existence though. Anything to get a few more years out of the trio before they retire. Hammond has aged like milk though; he looked just over 40 in the CHM live shows back in 2015, now he looks in his early 50s.

What did Hammond mean by this?

>>17733 He meant check 'em And I'm happy to report S3E5 ("Itchy Urus") is a return to form. Their mini biopics are definitely one of their strongest suits. Also James said something I'm sure a lot of anons on here would strongly agree with while talking about the new A110; that it's impossible to do retro styling with today's safety rules getting in the way.

>>17734 The Jim Clark part was great.

>>17735 Fuck yeah it was. General consensus seems to be it's one of the highest points of the entire series, which bodes well for the show's future if they keep putting out content like this. I think they can perfect the show's formula if they let the humor develop naturally (like in the Namibia and Colombia specials) over time and bottle it when they say or do something genuinely humorous, rather than script the shit out of something that really isn't that funny anymore, then couple it up with these short features about an automotive story that one or more of the presenters find close to their heart. That's all they'd have to do from here on in. They broke the show's kayfabe with the India Special, as I mentioned in my initial post, and so scripted shit just doesn't work as well as it did in the 00s when people were far more gullible unless you go over the top with it, see below. From what I've read, S3E4 was cutting room scraps designed to pad out the season due to lack of content. I'm probably being very controversial by saying this, but I can't be the only one who liked Operation Desert Stumble? Personally I thought it was fucking hilarious, though I guess it mostly appealed to my inner /v/tard. There were far worse moments in the show, like the time Jeremy ruined not one but two classic convertibles by turning them into makeshift monster trucks, or spending an entire episode making "environmentally friendly" bodyshells for those 3 Land Rovers.

Does anyone know if that Fulu crash at the end of the Chinese ep was staged or not? There's footage of him clearly being in the car when it starts to roll, and the background of loose stones/dense foliage matches their location, but I have a hard time believing anyone could have survived a roll from that height at that velocity and the two massive impacts which visibly shatter the windows, especially in a car where safety measures straight up don't exist. My current theory is that he may have rolled it onto an incline, production crew deemed it too much of a safety risk to allow him to continue, had him get out of the car, then pushed it down the side of the cliff.

https://www.invidio.us/watch?v=2OA9mA176mA >>17751 Your theory is probably correct. It's similar to that one time when James drove down a cliff in a Bentley.

Pretty good episode.

A decent episode. I thought the part with the "mysterious american" was pretty unnecessary.

>>17841 I thought it was gonna be their driver from season 1 but they never went anywhere with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsbI4kIulIQ Abbie's cute in casual clothes

Thank god the gang saved Georgia from communism.

>>17960 And we learned that the Renault 9 is the fastest car in the real world.

>>17842 It was, but they never went anywhere with it.

>>17960 >All that thirst in the comments

>>17962 We already knew that. It's a fact, Renault 9/Encore are the best car ever made.

That latest episode, no hyperbole necessary, was a fucking masterpiece. One of the best. Not only does it show how far they've come since 2003 as a bigger-budgeted version of a much older and oft-forgotten motoring show, but that episode was really the first time I realized they're on the final stretch before the finish line. From each of them mentioning the hours they have left earlier in the season, to looking at how sickly Clarkson looks with his inflated belly and bald scalp. Every passing episode will show us potentially the very last time they do or say something. I just hope they go out on an exceedingly high note. And with the TG reboot's 20th anniversary in about 3 years from now, I hope they get to feature on the show one final time. These three have literally been a constant presence all my life. From when I was a baby and Clarkson was still presenting Old Top Gear and releasing a home VHS each year, to when he was replaced by the then-unknown James May and all the other presenters that followed, to the beginning of the reboot, all those years of dominance, being voted the show of the decade, in the UK at least, but I think it applies globally too to their decline, to their resurgence, to The Fracas™, to the departure and throughout The Grand Tour. Sometime in the next couple years will be the very first time in my life that none of these three have filmed anything new, whether together or on their own. And that makes me feel old.

>>17968 Don't remind me that

Holy shit that Mongolia Special. Those are the only words I have for it. This is the episode that firmly establishes it as infinitely superior to Flop Gear.

>>18007 It was leagues better than the season 2 finale.

the Mongol tour and today's made for a brilliant last episode- truly moving. I love how its more than just "Let's have fun with cars" but personal connections and the trio's relation to their fathers. Like the other anon said, Top Gear and the trio have been around for as long as I've lived, and it's the only connection that I have to my childhood having moved from country to country. I sort of knew that it was going to a little ruse when the crying Jeremy said the show would be ending, but I still cried a little read: alot when that BBC/GT montage started.

>>18021 I honestly couldn't believe they got TG footage in there. Even Hammond's near-fatal crash from the first time around we've seen for the first time in more than a decade. Only things missing from the montage were the Toyotas (both the Indestructible one and the Polar/Icelandic ones), and the Vietnamese Special, but those were both mentioned in passing.

>>18022 And BTW, here's a magnet link for the entire third season in 1080P: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:fwxvrg64iqvdme5wxzafyrerz3rsnf2h&dn=The%20Grand%20Tour%20-%20Season%203%20%282019%29%20%5B1080p%5D&xl=34898085426&fc=14 32 gigs but well worth it.

>>18021 Here's where I lost it. Press F. At least we'll get some more specials.

>>18021 That montage hit close. This and top gear have been the only car show's I ever really cared about. I was even able to get non-car people to watch it. I don't know what the future will look like for it, but I'll really miss what we had,

Good riddance, fuck nu-Top Gear. It's been shit since the 2002 series. It went from a show about examining automotive culture and reviewing all aspects of the current market (subcompacts to supercars) to some shitty game show. If you have to intentionally crash cars for any purpose besides filming a movie scene or doing emergency training, you're just appealing to the lowest common denominator. Fuck the test track, fuck the cool wall, fuck your challenges, fuck the unfunny hosts, fuck the Stig, fuck the star cameos, fuck destroying rare cars for no reason. Top Gear is just a fucking meme. It's in the same league as Regular Car Reviews and Doug Demuro in terms of uneducated cancer-tier shows that secondary car "enthusiasts" take as gospel.

>>18040 >DAE REMEMBER WHEN THE SHOW WAS ABOUT CARS see unbearable faggots like you all the time on YT, genuinely surprised I found one on here. You're either a 45+ year old who thinks his opinion matters or a 21 year old who has a boner for Chris Harris. Tinted glasses off, Top Gear was shit from 1977 - 1986, passable from 1987 - 1991, great from 1991 - 1998, and then shit again from 1999 - 2001. Wheelbase was a far superior show for those first few years, found a segment from the '70s a few years back on YT with a Citroen DS (SM?) and a few other cars, and it wowed me as to how primitive it made old school Top Gear look in comparison. BBC almost canned OTG back in '86 because even they could see how boring it was, so in the end they fired all of the producers, replacing them with Jon Bentley, Tom Ross & Ken Pollock, and that's how we got Clarkson & Needell after the useless old farts Baker and Page were kicked off the show. Then with two hosts that actually had personality alongside the mellow foil of Woollard and Goffey, the show could actually evolve. Top Gear was rebooted because quite literally nobody gave a fuck about "Mr & Mrs. Mildred's rare vintage rally sign collection" or whatever it was Nick Mason's estranged brother was paid to do that week, and any used car buying advice was usually biased towards Rover until the mid-'90s since they were slowly dying since the late '70s, and then useless after 2 years of the episode airing. I've come to the conclusion that's the reason why you can't buy the original format anywhere; because so much of the show was dedicated to used cars that any segment of worth (e.g. the Vectra review, the Corolla review was drowned out by 18 hours of Quentin Willson at used car auctions). >fuck fuck fuck fuck Nah. Fuck your auto shows that skip all the interesting cars in favor of shit that ended up junked 5 - 10 years later. Fuck your consumer advice that was intended to get as much people buying BL shit as possible rather than something cheap and reliable from Japan or Europe. Fuck your fake investigations into shit that never existed (look up Fluorolastomec). Fuck your female hosts that clearly didn't give a shit about cars (Beki Adam became a nudist pothead once the fad passed for her, Kate Humble was hired literally because she had no idea about cars, VBH was a tranny that thought she was sexy yet her voice sounded like she smoked 50 a day Suzi Perry was and still is far superior). Fuck your sad autistic "autojumbles" and car meetings for cars that don't and will never deserve them. >destroying rare cars for no reason >Morris Marina >Austin Allegro >Austin Maestro >any of the cars used for Car Darts >rare Fuck off with that shit. There was a point you couldn't go for 5 seconds without seeing one of these parked up or driving by you. And once they did become "rare", they were still unforgivably shit. The Marina and Allegro destroyed the British car industry; they deserve as much destruction as they can get. >reeeeeee you h8 old top gear clarkson fanboy reeeeee See pic related? I'm preserving as much of the original show as I can because I recognize its historic importance in the grand scheme of things. On top of what you see I have around 100 full episodes (including those you can easily find online), Rally Report, and all but one of the VHS tapes they released. Later on this year I might be kind enough to release it all in one big torrent. What the fuck are you doing in comparison?

>>18041 intended for >>18039

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsJ-jd6dgQ0 >>18039 And one last thing, fucknugget. The internet destroyed Old Top Gear's reason for existing. What point was there to wait every week in the hopes of hearing something nice about a car you wanted to buy for 5 minutes that often never told you what you needed to know when you could just go online and get detailed specs/reviews whenever you wanted? They tried to keep it going since autistic people are known to despise change. They moved to Channel 5 and called it "Fifth Gear". And it fucking flopped. It only stayed alive in the end because it copied elements from the rebooted Top Gear that kept public interest in it sufficient enough that it got renewed, until the year even C5 could see they were flogging a horse that had been dead for so long it had turned into a fossil and put it out of its misery once and for all. Then they brought it back, and not long after they cancelled it again. Reminder; if you'd had your way at the BBC this is what we would have continued to see throughout the 2000s. That boring balding fuck Quentin Willson presenting a thinly veiled free advertisement for Rover after lying to the viewers that they could get an actually good car (in this case, a Merc) for a hell of a lot less if they bought it in Europe.

>>18043 that one is a very valid point, anon.

>>18041 >>18043 I was just going to ignore the guy, but you said it all pretty damn well.

>>18355 The more he talks the more I like him

I've never watched Top Gear, except for one episode a friend showed me. Where should I start, just from Season 1 and keep going?

>>18359 >Season 1 Oof, fuck no. There's a fat man in the place of James May, and the segments are mostly informative. Even the "entertaining" segments are very subdued compared to later on. If you want to start early on, I'd recommend Season 4. It's the first season with a cheap car challenge, and the first season with a race between a car and public transport. If you want an episode to start with, there's always the Vietnam Special. It's considered the best episode and it doesn't even feature a single car.

>>18363 Real men start with S1 and stay for the ride

>>18399 Well yeah, but from a casual perspective S4 is ideal, as it more or less sets the bar for every season that succeeded it. Diving headlong into S1 expecting explosions, monstrosities made from cheap cars and god-tier banter will only be met with disappointment once they realise the first 3 seasons was more to do with cheap new cars that a family man could realistically buy, flinging supercars just around the test track and not going anywhere interesting with them like the later road trips, and genuine (albeit horrifically outdated) consumer advice. BTW, if you want a HQ 576i version of S1, have a magnet link to the original SBS copies made by Finalgear rather than the shitty compression botch-job some troglodyte did that reduced its res to 512 x 328 and raped its bitrate in the process (pic related): magnet:?xt=urn:btih:awffscxxifuff45oyeuc2trasghfjxck&dn=Top%20Gear&xl=63414786056&fc=30 ATM it's at 90% since the leafcuck who has it at 99.9% (missing 8MB from Ep. 7, which is about 10 seconds) seeds at roughly 1kbp/s, but in around 2 - 3 weeks it should be good provided he doesn't leave again. Also one for S14 - S18 and a bunch of specials in 1080i: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:sulrvqx3wkwg3fbovxc6aa2a6jpj2t5j&dn=Top%20Gear%20HD&xl=173886519384&fc=39 Vietnam and Botswana in higher quality than the season torrents available: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:aphrzazkrbweffkro67qbvuoonyagsi4&dn=TOP%20GEAR%20VIETNAM%20SPECIAL%201080p%20WEBRip.mkv&xl=2525859610&fc=1 magnet:?xt=urn:btih:hlwr25m5n3pto5q6rbx7ej37uthrmtb5&dn=BBC.Top.Gear.2007.Botswana.Special.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org.mp4&xl=1789280310&fc=1 I'm currently searching for S19 - S22, and will be recording S2 - S13 via OBS once Motortrend stop lying and actually add S2 of Top Gear onwards to their library like they said they would on the 4th, and also since nobody did it for the several years they were available on Netflix and Amazon Prime.

>>18400 you're doing the Machine god's work

They should bring the redneck back to drive the cars around the track. I liked that he hated all non American cars and seemed to think foreign shit was gay and shitty. He played that character well and wasn't just a vagina in a helmet driving around not even saying shit. >>18400 What's it like consistently being the best poster in a thread?

>>18428 I'm going to guess he didn't want to do it again. Probably didn't want to keep going back to England. Abby is fine, I don't really mind her.

>>18363 >>18400 Thanks man. Don't know a whole lot about cars so I think I'll start with S1 anyways. Hearing consumer advice, even if it's outdated, might help me get a better handle on what's shit and what isn't shit.