top gear yesterday

itarumaa

Hi,

could someone please tell me how Top Gear ended yesterday, I missed the last part where Jeremy and Captain Slow were only few miles from the North pole,

thanks,

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Jeremy won it...amid jokes about the irony that the car is supposedly destroying the ice-caps, and yet it can barely 'scrape the surface'

itarumaa

cheers! Jeremy actually wins all the time in the show.

Stephen

This time he won by miles though, rather than the usual dodgy and probably staged close finish they have.

Alun

Stephen wrote:

This time he won by miles though, rather than the usual dodgy and probably staged close finish they have.

True, but they came pretty close to disaster (getting stuck, broken down, falling through thin ice) a good few times, Whereas 'Team Dog' just breezed on through without any incidents at all.

By the way, it was the Magnetic North Pole they went to not the real one, did anyone else notice the GPS reading when they arrived at their destination?

lightening

Alun wrote:

Whereas 'Team Dog' just breezed on through without any incidents at all.

I'd say realisitcally the dog team had a much tougher, pysically and mentally draining time. Its a car show not a dog show! But your right, they made it look easy for the dog team.

Alun wrote:

By the way, it was the Magnetic North Pole they went to not the real one, did anyone else notice the GPS reading when they arrived at their destination?

Good point, I'd imagine it was true north, not magnetic north.

Alun

lightening wrote:

I'd say realisitcally the dog team had a much tougher, physically and mentally draining time.

Dead right, it's a lot harder than it looks, I've done it myself (not to the North Pole, I might add).

Its a car show not a dog show! But your right, they made it look easy for the dog team.

What I meant was that it wasn't quiet as clear cut as they portrayed, and could quite easily have gone completely the other way. They never actually said what the margin was in the end, it all ended rather abruptly, almost as if they'd run out of film or something, I thought, but if Jeremy had spent another hour or so in that boulder field the result could have been quite different.

Plus, I've got a soft spot for those dogs, they're magnificent creatures

Good point, I'd imagine it was true north, not magnetic north.

From memory it was something like 74 degrees N, 104 degrees W, which is a loooong way from 90 degrees N, <whatever> degrees W which is the true pole.

Ger the man

Good entertainment and great advertising for toyota. Felt sorry for Hammond and the dogs though.

Mitch Connor

there is a top gear forum on here (Arts - TV - Top Gear), and a thread in it on the show - there is also a post that, seemingly, explains what the co-ordinates ment, and why they were chosen.

johnnyrotten

It was so obviously staged though

Johnny Storm

One of the best Top Gears ever. The bit where they were drinking the G&Ts cracked me up.
Being a cynic - I have to wonder how much of it is staged, though. Dickhead Clarkson did at least come clean that they were accompanied by a film crew, Icelandic guide and "a soldier". Probably at least the same with the dog group too.

MercMad

What else was on the show?

lightening

Johnny Storm wrote:

have to wonder how much of it is staged, though. Dickhead Clarkson did at least come clean that they were accompanied by a film crew, Icelandic guide and "a soldier". Probably at least the same with the dog group too.

Yeah... and spare parts, and spare cars....

ciaran76

johnnyrotten wrote:

It was so obviously staged though

I thought all their shows were staged. Its more a entertainment prog. with cars in it then a car show.

I still enjoy the show saying all that.

Mitch Connor

Johnny Storm wrote:

One of the best Top Gears ever. The bit where they were drinking the G&Ts cracked me up.
Being a cynic - I have to wonder how much of it is staged, though. Dickhead Clarkson did at least come clean that they were accompanied by a film crew, Icelandic guide and "a soldier". Probably at least the same with the dog group too.

in fairness - if they did not have a support crew - they'd probably have died out there. I'd expect ANY group of middle aged TV presenters with no experience in the task they were attempting, which would be very dangerous for even experienced people to do, to be accompanied by a large support crew.

There was also at least a film crew with Hammond, given the fact there were multiple angle shots of his adventure. Would be very surprised if there was not a similar support crew for him too.

whatsupdoc?

It was classic TG TV but why does Clarkson always let somebody else (JM in this case) do all the donkey work?

blastman

I liked the way Clarkson kept driving off with May perched on the toilet on the back of the truck!

Any idea when the next series starts?

wet-paint

Ah come on, don't be bitchign about the load of spares they brought with them, yo ucan be sure the sled had spare runners, leads, etc with them., It's just double redundancy when planning stuff like this.
Some of it was laugh out loud stuff alright, with the G&Ts yeah, and Jesus riding shotgun with them.
I bet Toyota creamed themselves when they heard about the plan, did you see the one shot of the cars entering the ice field? Three fully pimped out hilux's. They were eager to add to the great rep they got fro mthe earlier hilux feature.
Great telly all the same, but I did feel for Richard, he was left with this wan he didn't know and was grating on his nerves, he had a gruellign few days, but I guess he was the only one physically able to take it, the other farts were too past it to try.

Johnny Storm

The other great moment was Jeremy "I'm the biggest-headed twat in England, and that's really saying something" Clarkson being pushed into the ice-cold water. :eek: :mad:
That looked like a potential heart-attack to me!

wet-paint

That was cool, fair play to yer man for doing it, but all of them should have experienced it. All hte ****ehawking went out of him when he had to get out.

jmayo

They appeared to have a few Icelandic ice driving specialists with them.

There was at least two more hiluxs, one with a trailer in the convoy.
So it was the usual TV thing about how the two guys did it, but no mention of who actually helped get them there.

It was meant to be the magnetic north pole approx. 82 degrees north that is somewhere north of Canada's Sverdrup Island.
Their compasses appeared to be reading 78/79 degress odd when they were raving that they had reached the pole.
Actually in last few years it has been calculated to be moving further north and is about 82 degrees according to Geological Survey of Canada.

Most of media and people on various car forums appear to think they got all the way to 90 degrees north.

Still good program but one thinh I am wondering is what happened to the jeeps and pickups?
The other point is they did not show if the Hamster made it or not?

BTW anyone fancy a trip to pick up few hi-luxs, one careful owner

LostinBlanch

The credits at the end were great too. Everyone was Sir Rannulph from Clarkson. Hammond, May through to the tea lady.

wexford12

I cant belive i missed it does anyone know is there a repeat on its way

Rovi

wexford12 wrote:

I cant belive i missed it does anyone know is there a repeat on its way

Sunday 29 July, 8.00pm, BBC2.

afatbollix

johnnyrotten wrote:

It was so obviously staged though

all tv is staged

demanufactured

Wait a minute . was this top gear on UKgold or BBC?

Mitch Connor

it was on BBC.

wexford12

Rovi wrote:

Sunday 29 July, 8.00pm, BBC2.

Thank you very much for that i have it saved on sky now thanks again

positron

Watched the repeat last night - it was brilliant!

Its a pity they didn't show Hammond getting to the pole - he did it the right way and I wanted him to win! At least they should have stayed till

Clarkson and James May just sat there pushing the pedal and they had support teams to do most of the hard work, other than eating 5000 kcalories a day perhaps! And yeah, with the sort of funds available to them, they should have had a go at the current magnetic north pole - may be Toyota knew Hilux's weren't that good?

Mr. Presentable

It was fun, entertaining stuff, but a load of bollox. I don't recall seeing the sled being pulled out of the snow or using chainsaws to get through the ice. I did once see car tracks through the snow ahead of Clarkson and May - suggesting the path had been cleared for them.

May is a class act. G'n'Ts and foi gras - hilarious.

Mitch Connor

nipplenuts wrote:

It was fun, entertaining stuff, but a load of bollox. I don't recall seeing the sled being pulled out of the snow or using chainsaws to get through the ice. I did once see car tracks through the snow ahead of Clarkson and May - suggesting the path had been cleared for them.

May is a class act. G'n'Ts and foi gras - hilarious.

I don't remember seeing the sled getting stuck so that it would need to be pulled out. If they had gotten in to trouble and needed help from the support crew i am in no doubt was on hand they would have gotten it.

Maybe you noticed may and Clarkson having to get themselves out of a number of problems. They were helped when there was nothing they could do themselves.

As for May being a class act, not according to people i know who have met him.

positron

And the 'guy with a pixalated face' - I think he started off with a normal face till he pushed Jeremy Clarkson thru the hole in the ice!! They must have taken him off the show and had to pixelate his face!

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

nipplenuts wrote:

It was fun, entertaining stuff, but a load of bollox. I don't recall seeing the sled being pulled out of the snow or using chainsaws to get through the ice. I did once see car tracks through the snow ahead of Clarkson and May - suggesting the path had been cleared for them.

.

how do you think they get all those shots of the car from the front? Lob a camera over the roof of the car and hope it doesn' get smashed? Of course there would be a car ahead of them at least some of the time.

peasant

entertaining programme, but not such a great feat really, compared to this http://www.citroen.com/CWW/en-US/HISTORY/ADVENTURE/YellowCruise/ 75 (!!) years ago across the Himalayas.

MercMad

Yeah I must say I didn't expect much from the show, those staged races are always cr4p, but the Polar Race I was genuinely interested in it !

My wife even watched it and she hates Clarkeson (Overexposure in our house)

I deffo agree that JC could have had a heart attack when pushed in that hole, and I also spotted the tyre tracks ahead of them.

But they did endure some serious situations and that truck did very well, especially with the pounding he gave it over some of the rough stuff. I recall they both looked scared to death at one point when treading slowly through the thin ice !

Anyone know what motor was in the Hilux, it did not sound like a 4 cyl diesel to me !

pburns

MercMad wrote:

Anyone know what motor was in the Hilux, it did not sound like a 4 cyl diesel to me !

And therein lies the problem....
Did they even mention the Hilux? If they did it was a pretty brief intro which I missed while channel-hopping.

I loved the US trip but thought this show was totally lame.

Creamy Goodness

think clarkson just said something like this.

"... of course there was only one vehicle that we felt up to the job" and with that the camera zooms in on the hilux badge on the side

jmayo

Cremo wrote:

think clarkson just said something like this.

"... of course there was only one vehicle that we felt up to the job" and with that the camera zooms in on the hilux badge on the side

Clarkson hates Toyota and sees most Japanese cars as boring, since of course they are not British.
He did try and destroy a Hi-lux, but eventually had to admit it was almost indestructible. Why didn't he do with landrover?

The sled team also had to have someone with them, otherwise how did they get the distance shots of Hammond and the lady on the sled.
It was all basically staged.

They kept saying the North Pole to which most people would believe the geographic North Pole. And then they did not even reach the correct latitude for the Magnetic North Pole.
If you ignore all the inconsistencies it was funny but there were just two many to not think of it as an ego trip for Clarkson.

That is why I have to say the best part was watching Clarkson go in the drink.

Rovi

MercMad wrote:

Anyone know what motor was in the Hilux, it did not sound like a 4 cyl diesel to me !

3.0 litre D-4D engine, more here-
http://www.arctictrucks.com/?PageID=1219

Some stuff about the actual event-
http://www.arctictrucks.com/?PageID=1233

...and the rest of the things they do-
http://www.arctictrucks.com/

Tabnabs

They followed the route of the 'Polar Challenge' which goes to the magnetic pole of 1996 (which makes the race a set distance).

http://www.polar-challenge.com/

I have to admit I understood it to be the north pole all along until I saw the GPS at the end... :mad:

Creamy Goodness

jmayo wrote:

Clarkson hates Toyota and sees most Japanese cars as boring, since of course they are not British.
He did try and destroy a Hi-lux, but eventually had to admit it was almost indestructible. Why didn't he do with landrover?

you've just answered yourself as to why they didn't take a landrover.

seriously a landrover would not last out there at all.

Blitzkrieger

The story they give is that the races aren't staged. They run the race for real then go back and do some more filming after. Most of the shots of the hilux ploughing through the snow could have been done anywhere.

MercMad

He did try and destroy a Hi-lux, but eventually had to admit it was almost indestructible. Why didn't he do with landrover?

...........because they wanted to get there................at some point !

Thanks for the link Rovi !