As we followed the weekly Australian series of Top Gear earlier this year, it became apparent (through the comments left by readers) that the seemingly purposeless abuse of some test vehicles was not considered a joke. It started in episode one with Charlie launching a Toyota RAV4 V6 over a sand dune, stoving in the cars front bumper, and continued from there throughout the first series.
Well readers, you are not alone it seems. News out today reveals that some suppliers of the vehicles that were featured by Top Gear Australia are just as unhappy with the show’s antics and the damage bills they produce.
Reports suggest that there are luxury cars that have been so badly stone chipped that complete resprays have been required, while other makes bemoan damage bills incurred due to the ‘silly stunts’ undertaken by the Top Gear crew. In total, it is believed the repair bills are close to $200,000.
“We have no appetite for automotive Jackass,” the spokesman for one of the damaged brands said.
The most notable (and expensive) repair bill was for a Lamborghini that was ‘allegedly’ damaged during filming to the tune of $25,000, while the Holden Astras, used to play lawn bowls required $30,000 worth of corrective surgery.
“All we will say is that it turned out to be a very expensive test drive,” said Holden spokeswoman Kate Lonsdale of the Astra bowls stunt.
One manufacturer went so far as to suggest that the organisers of Top Gear Australia will “encounter a lot of shut doors” when filming begins for series two.
The Top Gear entertainment franchise revolves around the abuse of some test vehicles, to an extent. It would be fair to suggest that Clarkson has it down to an art form. He may break them mechanically, but he rarely bends them unnecessarily.
Has the Australian series taken vehicle abuse beyond the level required to entertain viewers? Did the marketing benefit derived from a product featuring on Top Gear Australia, outweigh the resulting repair bill?
We’ll have to wait until season two to determine which doors have been shut.
[Source: News.com.au]
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Huh. Not surprising in the slightest IMO. That Steve Cox bloke was excessively heavy-handed, and he often just seemed to thrash cars for no good reason. Clarkson at least justifies his abuse, but Cox just doesn’t care.
Strange this should pop up, I was lucky to gain a passenger ride of very exy (think $450k+) press demo car this past weekend that had just come back from one of the major magazines the previous day and I found the glass in the vanity mirror all broken and in pieces.
I know not exactly an expensive part to fix and replace but the disappointment they had was that they didn’t tell the manufacturer they broke it after they returned the car. You know who you are.
Throughout my years in the industry, I have for ever seen signs of wanton abuse of press cars. Mostly though it has been stuff like new tyres within 5000km or such. Sometimes they need panel repairs, but not to the effect that these guys openly did. Remember the Utility episode? Ptting 1 tonne in an XR6 (585kg rated) and tearing the tailgate of the Navara, I think that was the episode that showed to me that these guys weren’t motoring people at all.
Yeah havent even thought about this show ! Watched the first two episodes and it wasnt enough for me to rush home at night to watch it unlike the Pommy version! Normally the first shows are meant to hook you in but i fear with this lot all i got was the sinker ! Shame but thats my opinion ….
Damage to the Lambo… Was that when Warren switched it on in the studio and banged it on the limiter for a few seconds after a cold start?
Surely damage to the vehicles is accounted for in the production budget for Top Gear? Certain wear and tear items like brake pads might be taken on by the manufacturers, but surely when, for example, Jeremy blew a tyre on the Bentley Brooklands, the BBC would be footing the bill for that.
Problem with Aussie TG is that their budget is a fraction of the UK version’s.
My guess is that it was stone chip damage from the Tasmanian supercar jaunt. I remember thinking at the time that the cars must come back horribly chipped, as they sit on each others tails and swap the lead on Aussie country roads. Doesn’t take much to do $25k worth of damage to the paint on a lambo.
As an interesting aside, I noticed that the second time Steve drove the GT-R it was not hammered at all, in fact it was restricted to a high speed run on a yet to be opened road.
We know the owner of that GT-R and are fairly certain he supplied the car with a number of restrictions - incl dont chip, dent or needlessly thrash it. That car has the speed limiter disabled (I think Steve mentioned this), but they never gave it to ‘Imposter Stig’ to thrash around the test track.
I think the test track was off the agenda for that particular GT-R as well…
The thing is, JC only kills cars when they’re cheap. Like drowning a worn out Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow (worth maybe 4,000 “quid”) by driving it into a swimming pool in a staged scene or shooting an 80s Vette from a helicopter. It’s not like its a $300K Phantom or a $70K Vette he’s destroying.
I could do with 4,000 quid Gunnar could you?
Give me a break. Top Gear UK trashes plenty of cars, so its not like they didn’t know what they were getting into.
There’s the soccer/ice hockey games they played. While each car was cheap, there was a full field of them.
How about the Supercars in Paris bit, when they scraped the crap out of the Zonda? Or James May dropping his sweaty balls onto the alcantara seat of the Aston N24? They also crashed a brand new Peugeot for poops and giggles.
And plenty of car mags have done Tassie / country road jaunts.
Totally agree with Gunner and 280ZX,
the aussie version is not funny…sorry… its more embarrassing than funny and almost annoying…as a very aussie bloke who loves cars and the UK version.
and clarkson, may and hammond only damage cheap crap cars….and in many cases, by actually driving them to the limits…not new cars and not for a joke …or to try to be as funny as the english guys’… sorry Aussie top gear…you are disapointingly, NO WHERE NEAR the UK version.
The sooner this ‘embarrassment’ is off air, and the airtime replaced with more UK re-runs, the better!
Yep ill second that Frank!
I am with you 2 guys!!
I assume the show footed the bill for the repairs, right? If so, I don’t really see too much of a problem…
I found the series to be not that bad, myself. Sure it’s not up to TGUK standards but if you go back and watch its first series (which I have)… well, you’d be surprised how far they’ve come. You can tell as the Aus series progressed that their chemistry started to bubble, and were playing off each other and taking the mickey out of each other a bit more comfortably. Bring on the next season, I say! (Just make sure to tone down the music during the reviews a bit so I can hear the engines roar…)
I agree that many cars were unecessarily abused.
The lack of mechanical sympathy shown by Warren when zinging the lambo off the rev limiter in the studio makes me believe that he’s not too clued in on what’s going inside the engine.
As a car lover you just couldn’t do it without wincing.
Then there was the Rav 4 and Astra stunt. The Rav 4 was wantonly damaged, there was no reason for it unless you were a complete neanderthal. The Astra stunt was unremarkable and lacking in any form of entertainment other than wondering why the hell are they crashing a bunch of Astra’s.
Obviously comparisons will be make to BBC UK’s Top Gear and in most cases cars are given serious track/burnout abuse, but that’s generally in performance cars that will get that type of abuse in any press fleet or test/review situation. There’s no crashing or damaging for the sake of it going on unless it’s some cheap used vehicle.
Perhaps this was one aspect that lead to Mr Cox departing?
As a car lover I hope that Mr Morisson doesn’t go destroying any future vehicles in a display of bravado that results in the show looking stupid and out of touch.
This was such a terrible show! Why is it that these random wierdo’s, who know pretty much nothing about cars in any real sense, feel a sense of entitlement to act like douchebags when the original top-gearers have an immensely larger amount of knowledge, better sense of humour and evaluate proper cars properly, and when they want to have some fun, they buy old cars that aren’t given to them by dealers who are looking for a good promotional opportunity for their products…
Can the show or give it to me… coz anyone can do better than those knobs