Top Gear races - How can they not be fake ?
Discussion
Now I enjoy these races as much as the next man, but it is becoming impossible to suspend disbelief. Surely unless the camera crew has both a helicopter and a second Veyron / SLR / DB9, then Clarkson is limited to the speed of his camera crew.
Convince me I am being too cynical and it's all true.
Convince me I am being too cynical and it's all true.
KITT said:
I heard they do all the driving pass filming after the race. Although with the plane I guess they used a helicopter to film it (judging by the shots of it flying with flaps down to slow airspeed).
Yeah, heard that one myself too - and someone on PH mentioned it too! Could have been the Veyron saying that it wasnt going too fast in France, but importantly not going the right way!
As for the other stuff - minutes in it? Its possible. Probably a bit of artistic licence I know, but wouldnt be half as interesting otherwise. Its all entertainment at the end of the day. I mean, Eastenders is make believe too.....
Doesn't have to be Jeremy doing the driving on the return, well it isn't anyway, he flew back from Oslo after the SLR race (he mentioned this on the show) and as someone spotted on here the film of the SLR going over the bridge from Denmark to Sweden was going the wrong way, it was going Sweden to Denmark 
KITT said:
I heard they do all the driving pass filming after the race. Although with the plane I guess they used a helicopter to film it (judging by the shots of it flying with flaps down to slow airspeed).
I would have though the vast majority of turboshaft helicopters would be faster than that Cessna Jame May was flying.
RR-Eng said:Indeed, so it could easily file him landing at around 60kts. Rich...
I heard they do all the driving pass filming after the race. Although with the plane I guess they used a helicopter to film it (judging by the shots of it flying with flaps down to slow airspeed).
RR-Eng said:
I heard they do all the driving pass filming after the race. Although with the plane I guess they used a helicopter to film it (judging by the shots of it flying with flaps down to slow airspeed).
I would have though the vast majority of turboshaft helicopters would be faster than that Cessna Jame May was flying.
James (Captain Slow) May was flying, he probably had the flaps permanently down
Top Gear in it's current format is and always has been an entertaining show that has some cars in it. The entertainment factor has always been the most important aspect of the show, the old style 'factual show about cars' format has long been disregarded and left to the likes of 5th Gear.
I've never actually believed for a second that any of the 'races' were anything like what was shown as the finished product, there was always an element of creative license. I've never held much faith in most of what they've done, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, it is all still very entertaining. Of course, with any kind of show such as this, they have to keep trying to out-do what they did in the last series, make things more wild or silly, push the entertainment factor further to the forefront etc. so it is getting less and less believable, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Just take it for what it is, entertainment with some cars involved.
I've never actually believed for a second that any of the 'races' were anything like what was shown as the finished product, there was always an element of creative license. I've never held much faith in most of what they've done, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it, it is all still very entertaining. Of course, with any kind of show such as this, they have to keep trying to out-do what they did in the last series, make things more wild or silly, push the entertainment factor further to the forefront etc. so it is getting less and less believable, but that doesn't bother me in the slightest. Just take it for what it is, entertainment with some cars involved.
LRdriver II said:
whinge whinge, bitch, moan, slate, whinge, whine.....
BFOD !
www.balletfolkloricoofdallas.com/ ?
Clarkson in Top Gear Mag Feb 2006 said:Corblimey!
A lot of people ask how we film these races, and whether they're fixed. Well, let me say here and now, in print, they're not. I follow a Range Rover tracking car, and we really don't pull over for anything except fuel. In the drive to Oslo, the camera man spent 24 hours in the boot and had to relieve himself in a bottle because there was no time to stop.
Meanwhile, James and Richard are doing all they can to beat me. We take it very seriously.
But not half as seriously as the director who, when the race is over, has to retrace our steps, adding to the miles of tracking shots he took in the race, with many more miles of arty 'ups and passes'. This usually takes three days.
I agree with Gaz here - it's all a bit of fun which incidentally gives TG the chance to demonstrate whether the performance of these supercars is relevant in the real world. In many ways, the trans-continental races are more informative than the Stig's track runs. You don't buy a supercar like a Veyron or an SLR, or a big GT like a DB9 or a Scaglietti, just to do hot laps or go 'ooh' at the interior - you want to know whether you can eat France in it.
IMO they should give the next challenge race a bit of a twist - see if they can do the same sort of driving feat in a classic GT that we can all afford but that doesn't threaten to fall to pieces. I'm thinking BMW 635CSI. Pick one up for £5k, and I bet for the most part it can devour autoroute as aptly as a DB9.
Oh, and give it to James May to drive. 'Captain Slow' he may be, but at least he knows his cars and doesn't feign ignorance to please the crowd like Clarkson does when he talks about 'torques'.
IMO they should give the next challenge race a bit of a twist - see if they can do the same sort of driving feat in a classic GT that we can all afford but that doesn't threaten to fall to pieces. I'm thinking BMW 635CSI. Pick one up for £5k, and I bet for the most part it can devour autoroute as aptly as a DB9.
Oh, and give it to James May to drive. 'Captain Slow' he may be, but at least he knows his cars and doesn't feign ignorance to please the crowd like Clarkson does when he talks about 'torques'.
futie said:
A lot of people ask how we film these races, and whether they're fixed. Well, let me say here and now, in print, they're not. I follow a Range Rover tracking car, and we really don't pull over for anything except fuel. In the drive to Oslo, the camera man spent 24 hours in the boot and had to relieve himself in a bottle because there was no time to stop.
Meanwhile, James and Richard are doing all they can to beat me. We take it very seriously.
But not half as seriously as the director who, when the race is over, has to retrace our steps, adding to the miles of tracking shots he took in the race, with many more miles of arty 'ups and passes'. This usually takes three days.
Thanks for this. Much more useful than the "stop moaning" responses, especially as I was not.
But it probably shows that a Range Rover is as fast as a boat, train, plane.
>> Edited by benzedrine on Tuesday 3rd January 13:21
benzedrine said:
But it probably shows that a Range Rover is as fast as a boat, train, plane.
Or indeed any car travelling at (roughly) the speed limit
It's pretty much down to whether whether the car breaks down or has bad fuel economy meaning more stops, those would slow it down more than the outright speed.
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