She watched the show creep on, getting stale with each season in the face of new and fresh reality shows like Ground Force and Handy-Andy remodeling rooms. Attempts to somehow cheer up the good old car show were not successful. The news of the demise of the program was greeted with sadness by a few: most did not care. And only a tall curly man who left this show a few years ago took this news with lively interest. When Jeremy and I met at the pub at lunchtime, he was already seething with enthusiasm and jumping almost to the ceiling at the thought of how he would revive the old corpse. He's already built the key elements: the new TopGear will be centered around a studio with an audience, and hosts will talk to each other rather than presenting episodes individually.

This studio base made it possible to create a news column so that important cars could be discussed without making a film about each one. Jeremy, like most men in their forties, ate Nick Hornby's Hi-Fi. And if you happen to read this book, you know how beautifully it illustrates the love of the male mind for ratings and top five. We were within a tiny mental effort of the lap times board. The board required a track, which, in turn, made it possible to shoot Italian supercars at full gallop, and not in furious Cotswold turns at a speed of 60 km / h. And since there is a track and a studio, why not invite guests and let them ride a circle? One of us (there were several of us then), I don't remember who, imagined Bryan Ferry in a tuxedo, driving a small Hyundai or something equally anti-Bryanferry. And when we finished laughing at it, the "Star in a budget car" was born.

I did my share along the way, but to be honest, by the time Jeremy left the pub, he had already built the structure of the new TopGear.

And here in April 2015, I sit in a completely empty office and think that that long-standing lunch fully accommodates the tragedy of what the BBC lost by getting rid of Jeremy. They didn't just lose a man who could keep the audience's attention in front of the camera. They lost a journalist who, thanks to the discipline of the printed word, was able to emphasize the important and the unimportant. They lost a genius editor who could look at an existing schema, break it down, and build a new one in a series of flashing insights. Here's an example of such an outburst: I remember during that lunch, Jeremy insisted that the new Top Gear should not go out of its way to be the first to drive a new car, even if it's a Ferrari Enzo. For me, as a producer, this logic was pure madness, because being first means being exclusive. But he said: “No, you think: to be the first with a new car, you have to fly to a presentation, drive abroad in a left-hand drive car three or four months before it goes on sale, and all this will be an empty phrase. for our buyers. Let's wait. Let's rent a car when it can already be bought from us. When it appears on advertising posters and in showrooms - and then what we do will mean something to the audience. At the time I still thought he was talking nonsense. But how wrong I was! In the end, we didn't lose a single audience, shooting our film about Enzo two years later than the others.

Now all we needed was a name for the new Top Gear, and after a couple of glasses we found it: “The New Top Gear”. Having settled the case, we went and sold our idea to Jane, who, after a few minutes in the murmuring stream of our consciousness, told us to get out of the office and get down to business. As you read on, you'll realize that without Jane there would be no new Top Gear. I hope I have made this clear enough. She gave us the freedom to quit and start over, she cheered us up when we were scared, and she had a realistic understanding of television. I remember, for example, how I sat with her at one of the first meetings with the leadership of the BBC. When discussing the stories that the new Top Gear will shoot, I mentioned one thing that Jeremy and I did on the old Top Gear, which was about the Siamese survival race, where they race two cars connected by a chain.

Naturally, since this was a BBC manual, someone lashed out at me for saying "Siamese". While I was thinking about how we would say “Today on the show - Double Headed Race to the End”, Jane called everyone to order and said that we did not need to talk about what other people do with cars. “Create own world”, she advised us. And when you think about it, that's exactly what we did - James, Jeremy and Richard lived in their own childish world and just did what they wanted.

Jeremy was already jumping almost to the ceiling in enthusiasm.

However, I declined. Then, in 2002, the first step was to find new hosts. We rented a small studio in Acton and set to work armed with a long list of talents. At the audition, you had to stand next to Renault Avantime, tell something about him, and then discuss the news with Jeremy. And at first we were struck by the wit and the ability to read the news about used cars in a fascinating way by a fat dude with a bang, like Shakin Stevens, named Jason Doe.

Then came James May. Jeremy and I have known James for a long time as a motoring journalist: he was briefly hired by the old Top Gear and quickly fired. It was an important audition for him if he wanted to get back on the show. But James is James. He glanced at Avantime, dismissed it as marketing bullshit, skimmed through the news stories he was supposed to present with Jeremy and tossed them aside. And he began to tell us that gas stations of the old Rolls-Royce cost him such a lot of money that he even had to buy into Sainsbury's offer - a gas discount of 200 pounds on each purchase, and therefore he is now a bachelor with a refrigerator full of rotting lettuce. Then he left, leaving the puzzled BBC bosses staring off into space.

Returning to the tiny office at the BBC, we saw that it was littered to the ceiling with cassettes from applicants. They were sent by dealers, students who had nothing to watch on TV during the day, bearded lovers of classic cars and ales, even lingerie models who blew their savings in tanning beds. But my favorite was an enthusiastic kid who sent an endless tape of him doing a police U-turn in his BMW 3-Series in some industrial area. He didn't say a word, and as far as I remember, he never turned around.

Then, on the 1600 millionth day, producer Kate Shears walked into our cramped office, waving another cassette, and said, guys, this is worth a look. The sassy little guy sent a bad review of the car, which for some reason he was doing in a Batman suit ... But Kate was right - there was something about the boy. So Richard Hammond was invited to watch.

And then he appeared - in a terrible shirt, mumbled some hackneyed nonsense about Avantime and walked through the news pretty well. But we did not see anything similar to what was on the cassette. Then, towards the end of the audition, he began to talk about a painfully unsuccessful career as a radio DJ. And the most painful memory was the announcements on the late night radio of Cumbria, where he read the names of the sheep that were placed in good hands. By the end of this tragic anecdote, Jeremy and everyone else in the room were crying with laughter. It takes a lot of courage to talk about your failures with such intense competition at the screening. But it was the right move, because self-deprecation - which we did not yet know - became the basis of Top Gear's humor.

We already knew that men's conversations would be an important part of the show.

When the views are over, it's time to choose. Everyone agreed that we needed a funny little loser DJ, but then the arguments began. Fat car salesman Jason was in the lead, Jeremy campaigned for James, but the BBC bosses were unwavering in their desire to see a woman third in the lead. I'm actually a big fan of the BBC, but God, how they test our patience when they "apply marketing logic"! Or, in other words, they are minding their own business. Their argument for a female host was that for a show to be watched by women, it must be hosted by a woman. I've said many times that I love watching What Not To Wear, even though Jimmy Neil isn't there. But no one heard me. The problem was that the older BBC executives knew nothing about motoring. And according to the law of meanness, the less they understood about the subject, the more acute was their desire to intervene.

Be that as it may, we have seen a lot beautiful girls, which were more than suitable for the role of the leading car transmission. But Jeremy and I were beginning to realize that an important part of the show would be men's talk: not macho or bachelor party style, but just plain male chatter. To understand which you need to travel into that huge black hole, which is called the male consciousness.

We never said that an all-male line-up would give us an edge over a mixed line-up, it was just what we needed. And then, reluctantly, emboldened by warnings about the terrible wrath that Jane Ruth would bring down on our heads, we went to tell her that we did not want a girl. She looked at us for a minute as we prepared for the worst, and then she said, “Great. Do as you know. I like it this way and that way." So we were introduced to a classic example of the favorite game of the BBC management: “Go understand the boss”.

Having dealt with the sexual issue, we received the go-ahead for the final selection. Or rather, they thought they had. But the BBC's nose poke department isn't done with us yet. Jeremy urged everyone to take James, but we were told that the trio of Jeremy, James and Richard would look too much like "three middle class, private school graduates and peers." "So what?" we answered. “It's uniform, but we need variety,” we were told. We objected that Trinny and Susannah were the same, and the Two Fat Ladies too, and so on... But in the end, after arguing about what was uniform and what was different, we lost. And the uniform James was kicked in the ass for the diverse Jason Doe, who, as far as I remember, was middle-class of the same age as us.

And our problems with the presenters did not end there. We also needed a super pilot, a pro in racing. Tiff Needell was no good because the BBC wanted the new TopGear to look nothing like the old one. And if we take the driver, he, like Tiff, will have to lead the plots. But so many plots don't fit into one hour, and the racers, apart from rare talents like Tiff and Jason Playto, are not particularly talented at effusions in front of the camera. One evening I was trying to overcome this problem in the office by trying all sorts of combinations on a huge whiteboard until it looked like a shot from The Theory of Everything. And then Jeremy showed up. “You know I can blow the stern into a skid like Tiff did in the old Top Gear,” he said. - But I can't keep the perfect trajectory, kiss the apexes and all that is necessary for the lap time on the board. So we still need a rider.”

“Yes, but then we still need a rider who can talk, and we are back to the beginning,” I replied. After a minute or two, Jeremy flashed, “Wait a minute, why does he have to talk? - he asked. “It could just be a racer, wearing a jumpsuit and a helmet, and he’ll be churning out circles and never open his mouth… We won’t even see his face, and no one will know who he is!” By this point, Clarkson was on fire. "He'll be like a freak in" pulp fiction". We can call him that - Freak!” he shouted.

And so Urod was born. Now it only remained to find a rider for this role. A shy quiet guy who hates to talk. And for some reason we chose Perry McCarthy - the only one whose tongue spit faster than his car. Perry clearly explained to us where we should put the idea of ​​naming him Ugly, so we renamed the character The Stig.

Now the kit was complete, it was time to shoot the pilot. Costume rehearsal where you can see the mistakes and correct them. Full of ambition and in good spirits, we built a scenery reminiscent of the main reactor of the Death Star - just a little smaller - and somehow stuffed them into a hired hangar. Then the illuminators asked: how much light do you need? And we said: "Uh-uh ... let's have more." And they did. We gathered several hundred spectators, locked the doors of the metal hangar, turned on all the lights and began filming our first broadcast. It was in the middle of July.

I don’t remember exactly when, but very soon people began to faint, and after two hours most of the audience lay in a coma. Our guest David Zhinola, a physically strong man, sat sullenly in a puddle of his own sweat, begging heaven to send him quick death. At this time, Jason, more like a bucket of water in his shirt, cheerfully began the 18th take of "Used Car News". The recording was supposed to take several hours, but it seemed to us that we curled up after three days. And having mounted the results, we realized that it turned out to be complete garbage.

While Jane Root silently reviewed the footage, we huddled up to the windowsill of her sixth-floor office. Then she said, “Relax, guys. You won’t scare me with wires and staff with mugs of tea in the frame.” Taking her advice literally, we filmed the co-pilot, where we relaxed so much that we forgot to turn on the cameras when the presenters had already begun to perform. And when the cameras did turn on, there was such anarchy all around that we couldn't tell the hosts from the audience.

I remember Jason demonstrating the quality of the assembly of the car and in a fit of enthusiasm tore off the center panel. But we didn't film it because the camera was covered by a man in a Subaru T-shirt. At that moment, director Brian staggered out of his trailer and told me that in twenty years of working in television, he had not seen such a mess. But, in truth, we simply did not have time for tantrums and tears. Because October 2002 was rapidly approaching, and in a few days we had to go on the air for real ...

TEXT: ANDY WILMAN

top gear- a show about racing and cars that started on British television in 1977. The first peak of the show's popularity came in the mid-nineties, but by 2001, falling ratings put the show on the verge of closing. The show, which began as a TV car magazine, changed its format in 2002, making Top Gear not only an authoritative source of news in the auto world, but also a comedy show with stars. The filming location for the revamped show was Dunsfold Airfield and Business Park in Waverley, Surrey. The studio became a hangar, where it would be possible to gather a sufficient number of spectators. The runway acted as a testing ground.

Ben Collins was born on February 13, 1975 in Bristol. He first took part in races at the age of 19, starting with the youth series Formula Vauxhall Junior, where he won eight podiums and three victories. In 2003, Collins became the champion of the European stock car racing series. And in 2003, his television career begins as the silent and mysterious Stig.

Interesting Facts About Top Gear Hosts

Despite the fact that Jeremy Clarkson did not become the host of Top Gear until 2002, he joined the program in 1992. It was thanks to him that the show became so popular in the mid-nineties, and it was on his initiative that it was restarted in 2002.

James May joined the show in 2003. He took the place Jason Doe, the host of the first season of Top Gear, whose task was to show conventional cars as opposed to the "supercars" represented by Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond.

The signature feature of the show is the phrase "Ah, hell!", which James May invariably said if something went wrong. In The Grand Tour, which Clarkson, Hammond and May have been working on since 2016, the host cannot use this phrase, as Top Gear owns the rights to them.

In 2016, the main host of Top Gear becomes Chris Evans- a well-known radio and TV presenter in the UK. For this role, the BBC management also considered candidates Stephen Fry And Rowan Atkinson. Evans' co-host in the first episodes of the first season becomes a racing driver Sabine Schmitz. After the first season, the line-up changes. The host of the show is an American actor and participant in the TV series "Friends" Matt LeBlanc.

Categories Top Gear

"Race". In this competition, the hosts try to figure out how to get to a certain place faster. The peculiarity of racing is that Jeremy Clarkson cannot use public transport, and James May and Richard Hammond cannot use cars. Sometimes they compete against each other using other modes of transport.

"Trials"- one of the most interesting elements of the program. During the trials, the presenters try to find out, for example, whether a bus can jump over motorcycles. Starting from the fifth season, the purpose of the tests is to find out how difficult it can be, for example, converting a Renault Espace minibus into a convertible or converting ordinary cars into an amphibian.

For rubric "Star in a budget car" guest stars lap around a Top Gear track. Clarkson calls their time and posts the result on a special board. The Stig instructs the stars.

"Best Circle" dedicated to the arrivals of cars for a while. The Stig is also driving the car, the rest of the hosts are watching the lap, commenting on the behavior of the car on the track. The result is hung on the board "Best lap".

"Wall of Coolness" determines the coolness of the car in the categories: “not cool at all”, “not cool”, “cool”, “very cool”. The purpose of the rubric is to turn the controversy, which ends with Clarkson using his height to place the photo of the nominee at a height unattainable for Hammond.

Heading « Fancy Reviews» dedicated to the behavior of the car in unusual conditions. A prime example can serve as a Toyota Hilux pickup truck, which was blown up, burned, drowned, and then they checked whether it would start or not. From the same model, Clarkson made his amphibious Toyota.

Every year, at the end of autumn, the hosts choose "Car of the Year".

Winners different years in the category "Car of the Year"

2002 - Range Rover

2003 - Rolls Royce Phantom

2004 - Volkswagen Golf GTI

2005 - Bugatti Veyron

2006 Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder

2007 - Ford Mondeo or Subaru Legacy Outback

2008 - Caterham 7 Superlight R500

2009 - Lamborghini Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni

2010 - Citroen DS3

2011 - Range Rover Evoque

2012 - Toyota GT86

2013 Ford Fiesta ST

2014- Toyota 4Runner

The Top Gear show has won numerous awards, including International Prize Emmy for Best Screenplay entertainment program in November 2005, and won the National Television Award in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

On track record Top show Gear has not quite the usual awards. In 2007, Richard Hammond was awarded the Best TV Haircut by Heat magazine, James May the Worst TV Haircut, and all three hosts won the Strangest News award. In 2008, The Stig received the Scouts' Good Instruction Award.

September 20, 2006 on the set of the next episode of the show, Richard Hammond got into a car accident. According to the script, the presenter was testing a Vampire jet-powered car. The car at a speed of 518 km / h took off from the runway of the former Royal Air Force airfield, where tests were carried out, rolled over and flew a considerable distance on the lawn. The cause of the accident was the front right tire, which could not withstand the speed and exploded.

James May, along with Clarkson and an Icelandic support team, were the first people to reach the North Pole in a specially equipped Toyota Hilux.

Top Gear host voices GPS navigator

company GPS navigators tom tom will speak in the voice of Jeremy Clarkson, the host of the popular automotive TV show top gear.

Unlike the usual messages, the navigator will sound something like “I said, to the left! To the left, they tell you! “That’s the kind of tone I talk about,” Clarkson himself remarked.

In addition, the company added to the navigators the "voice acting" of Stig, the silent racer top gear. The mode is notable for the fact that when it is selected, the navigator will not make a sound. However, the manufacturer recommends using it when driving is very safe, reports Daily Mail.

History of Top Gear

At that time, the program was very different from hers. modern look, she was a regular TV show about cars and road safety. Relatively many presenters took part in the program, for example, motorcycle specialist Steve Berry (Steve Berry), future producer of the new version of "Top Gear" Andy Wilman (Andy Wilman) and future host James May.

To attract a female audience was supposed to be with the help of female presenters, including racer Vicki Butler-Henderson (Vicki Butler Henderson), Sue Baker (Su Baker) and Angela Rippon (Angela Rippon).

Jeremy's coming

Jeremy Clarkson, who wrote a column for the magazine at the time Performans Cars, was invited as a presenter in 1988. His style of broadcasting, based on sarcasm and macho humor, contributed to the increase in the popularity of the program from hundreds of thousands to 6 million viewers and, in fact, made the Top Gear show a worldwide phenomenon.

Clarkson's opinion about a particular car model, voiced in the program, could seriously increase sales or reduce its popularity. So, after Jeremy called the Toyota Corolla "boring", Toyota banned him from testing its cars.

In 1999, Clarkson decided to leave the program and pursue other projects. After his departure, the number of Top Gear viewers has noticeably decreased. Other problems overlapped: another host, Brendan Coogan (Brendan Coogan), was forced to leave after a trial for drunk driving.

In 2001, the BBC decided to put the program on hold due to its low ratings among viewers. The journalists who worked on the program moved to another main British channel, BBC Five, where they began work on a program called Fifth Gear("fifth gear").

Resumption

But shortly before the release Fifth Gear On air, the BBC announced the resumption of "Top Gear" with the participation of Jeremy Clarkson. The credit for resuming the show goes to Clarkson himself and to current lead producer Andy Wilman. (Andy Wilman). In 2002, the program was released on the screens. Its format has changed significantly: the show began to last one hour, there were three main hosts. Jeremy added Richard Hammond (Richard Hammond) and Jason Dave (Jason Dawe), who was later replaced by James May after the first season (James May).

In 2006, Hammond crashed when a tire blew out while driving at about 480 km/h on a jet dragster (a special model for speed racing). filming next season transmissions resumed 15 days after the incident. Despite the brain damage, Hammond quickly recovered and on January 28, 2007 he hosted the first episode of the 9th season. His return to the program was accompanied by corps de ballet dances and fireworks.

In 2006, the BBC decided to change the location of the program from Dunsfold, Surrey to Enston, Oxfordshire. However, the West Oxfordshire Building Commission denied permission to design and build a test site for high-speed machines, citing the high levels of noise and pollution that such a test site would cause.

In 2008, there were speculations in the press that James May and Richard Hammond wanted to leave Top Gear because of the difference in pay with Clarkson, but the presenters themselves denied this information.

In 2009, Hammond and Clarkson were involved in an accident while filming in New Zealand when a seagull flew into the blades of the helicopter it was flying film crew. However, the presenters did not suffer then.

Awards

In 2005, Top Gear won an American Television Emmy Award for " the best transmission without a script, ”although she still has a script. Clarkson responded with humor about this, he lamented that he could not attend the awards ceremony because he was busy writing the script for the next program.

Three times in a row, from 2006 to 2008, Top Gear won the British National Television Award in the Best Nonfiction category.

From 2006 to 2008, program hosts Richard Hammond, James May and Jeremy Clarkson consistently ranked #1 on the British Women's Magazine list. Heat"Weird sex symbol."

Today

We can honestly admit to ourselves that Top Gear in the current format is closer to the end than to the beginning, and our task is to land this plane without prejudice to its status. Ironically, however, it means that we still have to find new routes until the end of the show, even if we screw up, because, in general, this means that we do not stop trying.

This caused a flurry of indignation from the public. In particular, half a million viewers signed the "Save Top Gear" appeal on the largest social network Facebook. One way or another, on this moment the presenters have a contract for another two years.

The show is currently airing in the UK on bbc one bbc hd(high definition channel) and Dave, it is shown in more than 100 countries around the world. As of autumn 2010, more than 350 million people have watched the program. The audience when recording a program is 50% women over 18 years old. The queue for tickets to the show is one to two years. Each Top Gear series consists of short thematic fragments - headings.

Race

The program regularly shows races over long distances. Typically, Clarkson drives a car in competition with another mode of transport, such as an airplane, a steam locomotive, or a dog sled driven by Hammond and May. There are also shorter races in the transmission, in which strong and weak sides certain car model. In such a race, one of the leaders competes with the athlete in conditions favorable to the athlete. Also in the transmission there are races in which two cars of similar class take part, for example, Aston Martin And Ferrari.

Tests

The program includes testing cars in some unusual way, for example, it can be a bus jumping over motorcycles, a nun driving a monster truck, drivers trying to drive a tractor, spending 24 hours inside a Smart car or fixing a road in a day, since British road workers have this takes months, ostensibly due to safety requirements and their laziness. Beginning with the fifth season, the challenges received the headline "How Hard Is It?".

Star in a budget car

In this part of the program, Clarkson interviews (usually, but not always) a British celebrity - politician, athlete or actor. Then the studio shows the fastest lap that the celebrity drove in a test car along the Top Gear track, after which the result is entered into a table on the board of the same name. In the first seven years, tests were carried out on Suzuki Liana worth £9,995. Ellen MacArthur was the fastest to finish. In 2006 Suzuki replaced Chevrolet Lacetti, in the fifteenth season budget car became Kia Ceed. It is also known that automakers Hyundai, Daewoo And Nissan refused to provide their cars for "Stars in a Budget Car".

best lap

In this part of the program, the program's official driver, The Stig, tests various vehicles at the test site for speed and other characteristics. According to the rules, the car must be available for sale, be prepared for driving on ordinary highways, be able to run over a speed bump and have a gasoline engine. The record time on the track (1 minute 16.8 seconds) belongs to Bugatti Veyron SS, the slowest was Porsche Paw Au Chocolat(18 minutes 37 seconds).

wall of coolness

Section appeared in the sixth episode of the first season. As part of the rubric, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond determine the degree of "coolness" of cars by posting their photos on the Wall of Coolness. The wall is divided into sections: not cool at all, not cool, cool, and super cool. Top Gear producer Andy Wilman writes that the coolness of a car is determined by many factors, of which the quality of the car is not the main one, since there are many quality cars on the market now.

For example, Chrysler 300C"moves like a donkey" but its use in the popular gangster television series The Sopranos gives it a twist. And vice versa: although Rolls Royce Phantom was named "Car of the Year" in 2003, it is in the "uncool" section. The purchase of a car by the leader automatically enrolls him in the "completely uncool".

Fancy Reviews

One of the main original features of Top Gear is the informal approach to car valuation. Along with standard tests on the road, the car is subjected to unusual tests. The most famous was the test Toyota Hilux to strength by setting it on fire, being thrown off a crane, a trailer being thrown on top of it, sinking into the sea, hitting a tree, ramming a large barn with "Top Gear Editorial" written on it, hitting it with a demolition ball, and finally, a directed explosion during demolition old building. After all this, the car could still be driven without changing major parts.

Car of the Year

At the end of the autumn season of the show on British television, the presenters award "Car of the Year". The only criterion for evaluation is the consensus of all three leaders. "Car of the Year" is selected in different categories, including "Supercar of the Year", "Hatchback of the Year", "Family Car of the Year", etc.

According to the results of 2009, the "Cars of the Year" in these categories were, respectively, Ferrari 458 Italia, Volkswagen Golf GTI, Skoda Yeti. In addition to the Car of the Year, the Car of the Decade is also selected. In the 1990s he became Land Rover Freelander, and in the 2000s Bugatti Veyron.

Leading

Jeremy Clarkson

School years

Born April 11, 1960 in the city of Doncaster in the county of Yorkshire in the family of a teacher and a traveling salesman. With the help of a side and surprisingly successful toy business, Paddington Bears, organized by Jeremy's mother, the family managed to save money for his education at the private Repton School in Derbyshire.

Until Jeremy's voice broke, he voiced the role of a private school student in radio shows of Anthony Buckerge's books on the BBC show " children's hour". However, Clarkson was later expelled from his school for "inappropriate behavior" that included smoking, drinking alcohol, and seducing girls, according to another version - for smoking, drinking, and "because everyone was tired."

Journalism

Failing to pass the final exams high school, he got a job as a reporter for a local newspaper Rotherham Advertiser on probation However, he quit his job and sold toy bears for a while. Jeremy then went to London where he became a freelance auto journalist. In the 1980s he wrote for auto magazines, which included performance car. In 1984, the future TV presenter founded a press agency Motoring Press Agency, which was engaged in testing cars for automotive magazines.

Glory to Clarkson came after he became the host of Top Gear in 1989, where he worked until 1999 and since 2002. In 2008, Clarkson signed a contract with the BBC's commercial arm for "several million pounds a year", including salary and a percentage of Top Gear's worldwide brand revenue.

In addition to "Top Gear", Jeremy has been a host in other car-related programs - Star Cars, Clarkson's Car Years, Speed And motor world. The popular journalist also writes weekly columns for British newspapers. Sunday Times And Sun.

Hobbies

Motorsport is not Jeremy Clarkson's only passion, British Armed forces and mechanical pioneers, Clarkson made several broadcasts on these topics. For example, he hosted the first season of Robot Wars (1997), the Clarkson chat show (1998–2000), in which he routinely caused a press scandal by melting a map of Wales in a microwave, "because Scotland doesn't fit", "Jeremy Clarkson's Extreme Machines" (1998), etc.

Being a well-known Europhobe, he reflected his travels in Europe in the show Meet the Neighbors. Jeremy has been a guest host on the popular comedy show"Do I have news for you"; "Inventions that changed the world"; "The Great Britons", in which he represented the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. He has been a guest on numerous programs including Greatest Hits and Grumpy Old Men.

Clarkson owns a collection of rare cars that includes Ferrari F355, Ford GT, Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. There are currently no demerit points on his driver's license.

Author of several books: Motor World (1996), Clarkson on Cars (1996), Jeremy Clarkson's Hot Hundred (1997), Jeremy Clarkson's Planet Degenham (1998), Born to Annoy (1999), " Jeremy Clarkson on Ferrari (2000), The World According to Jeremy Clarkson (2004, UK #1 bestseller for eight weeks), I Know You Have a Soul (2004), And Again: The World According to Jeremy Clarkson Volume 2 (2006), Don't Stop Me Now (2007), Yoprst: The World According to Jeremy Clarkson Volume 3 (2006).

He holds an honorary degree from Brunel University (2003). When nominating for a Candidate Degree engineering sciences Oxford Brookes University for "contributing to learning and to the community and as a role model for students of the university", the teachers of this institution began to collect signatures on a petition against the award of the degree because of Clarkson's love for fast cars and his inappropriate attitude towards environment. Factory workers joined the petition bmw, dissatisfied with Clarkson's criticism of the quality of work of the personnel of the now closed plant MGRover. However, the degree was awarded in 2005. During a post-degree photo shoot, the environmentalist threw a banana-meringue cake at Carxon and hit him in the face.

Family

In 1993, the presenter married his manager Frances Kane. (Francis Cain). In 1994, 1996 and 1998, children were born in the Clarkson family - Finlo, Emily and Katya. The family lives in Chipping Norton (Chipping Norton) in Oxfordshire.

Sayings

Quotes from the statements of Jeremy Clarkson are so popular that they are replicated in the press, and the Top Gear website offers to receive them on your mobile phone. Here are some:

ferrari 355 how to quail egg, sprinkled with celery salt and served in the navel of Julia Roberts.

Telling dinner party guests that you drive a Nissan Almera is like saying you have Ebola and are about to sneeze.

If you decide to buy this car, then when you drive away from your friends' houses, I recommend giving reverse so they don't see her butt.

I'm more concerned about the color of the knob on my Mercedes SLK's gearbox than the amount of carbon dioxide it releases (to the environment).

Interesting Facts

• Clarkson's height is 1 m 95 cm.
• His great-great-great-grandfather, John Kilner, invented the hermetically sealed screw-top jar with a rubber seal for storing food (the Kilner jar).
• Clarkson had a combat aircraft on the lawn of his country house for some time, until the local council demanded that it be removed.
• The second home of the Clarkson family is a lighthouse on the Isle of Man.
• In 2009, Jeremy was ranked 6th in GQ magazine's "The Worst Dressed Men" ranking.
• Clarkson was one of the passengers during the last flight of the British-French Concorde supersonic passenger aircraft.

Richard Hammond

Youth

The grandson of car factory workers, he was born December 19, 1969 in Solihull. (Solihull) near Birmingham in the West Midlands (West Midlands). In the mid-1980s, the Hammond family, which included, in addition to Richard, mother Eileen, father Alan and younger brothers Andrew and Nicholas, moved to the town of Ripon in North Yorkshire, where the elder Hammond had a probate business.

Studied at private school for the boys and then in public school Ripona. After graduating from Harrowgate College of Design and Technology (1987-1989) he received a degree in television communications. The future journalist became the host of the Bank of Lambs radio program (Lamb Bank) on BBC Radio Cumbria, where Richard had to read lists of sheep for sale. He later worked for BBC Leeds and BBC Lancashire. In 1995, he left the BBC and began working for a public relations company, organizing events for corporate clients, including Renault and the Ferrari Owners Club. In 1998, Hammond became the host of the program Motorweek on satellite channel Men&Motors.

"Top gear"

In 2002, Richard was invited to work as a host in the new Top Gear format, where, due to his youth, relatively short stature and good looks, he became the butt of Clarkson's jokes. Nickname "Hamster" Richard explained: "I told Jeremy and James the story of how my friend reacted to the message that my wife Mindy was pregnant. A friend said, “Ahh, little hamster.”

On September 20, 2006, Richard tried to set a speed record on a jet dragster. The car rolled over and crashed several times, Hammond was cut out of the car with an autogenous machine and taken to the hospital in an ambulance helicopter. After the car crash, the BBC received 40,000 messages from viewers in support of the presenter. After recovering, Richard returned to Top Gear, and his fans raised about $345,000 for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, which bought another helicopter.

Rest

In parallel with Top Gear, Richard hosted many other television programs on various channels, mostly on the BBC, including the television coverage of the annual British exhibition dogs "Crufts", "Meeting of Richard Hammond with Evel Knievel" ( BBC Two, the last interview of a famous motorcycle racer and stuntman), "Battle of the Inventors", "Time Commanders" (game), "Should I be worried?" (about what scary newspaper headlines on medical topics mean), evening entertainment program"Total Destruction" (total wipe out).

A TV journalist is the team captain on a car humorous quiz BBC Two"Gasoline Heads". . He also represented ITV the historical documentary The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend about an attempt to reproduce the Guy Fawkes plot to blow up the British Parliament, The Richard Hammond Show at 5 o'clock, and the first four episodes of the popular science program Brainbreakers: The Violence of Science on the TV channel sky one, as well as "Engineering connections" (Engineering Connections) on the channel National Geographics.

Private life

Hammond's main hobbies are cars, motorcycles and trucks. Owns a collection of cars, including Morgan 8 Roadster, Dodge Charger 440 R/T(1969) and Porsche 928(1979). Plays the bass guitar, took part in joint performance hosts of "Top Gear" and musician Justin Hawkins (Justin Hawkins) from the group The Darkness in Top Gear for Comic Aid (2007).

Married Amanda Etheridge on May 4, 2002 (Amanda Etheridge), better known in the press under the abbreviated name Mindy. The Hammond couple have two daughters, Isabella (2000) and Willow (2003). In 2008, the Hammond family moved from Gloucestershire to Buckinghamshire, closer to London. They lived in the new house for three days and returned back, because the move "changed a lifestyle that suited them to an unsuitable one." His father was a steel mill worker. James has an older sister, Jane, younger sister Sarah and brother.

Career

In 1998-1999, May hosted an auto show driven on the fourth channel of British television, voiced an eight-episode program about aggressive behavior on the roads Road Rage School.

In 1999, James became one of the hosts of Top Gear. He returned to the program after its renewal and format update in the second season. Allegedly for his cautious driving style and dislike for fast driving, Clarkson gave May the nickname "Captain Snail". However, James sometimes drives the car at very high speeds, such as when testing high-speed Bugatti Veyron.

He is the author of a column called "England made me" in a car magazine CAR and articles in Top Gear magazine. Since September 2003, he regularly writes articles for the Saturday supplement to the newspaper Daily Telegraph.

Represented the BBC hit parade Top of the Pops(2006), two seasons of the wine show "Oz and James' Big Wine Adventure" (BBC Two), "Oz and James Drink to Britain", "Inside the Killer Sharks" (Channel Sky), "James May's Favorite Toys" about children's toys (BBC One) and "James May: My Sister's Favorite Toys" (BBC Two), "James May's Big Ideas".

Television shows rarely earn cult status because constant attention viewers for a long time is difficult enough. British Top Gear succeeded. The show has gained cult status, and Top Gear hosts have become incredibly popular personalities. They are recognized in person in any country in the world, they are immensely adored and look forward to appearing on the screen. We'll talk about who hosts Top Gear today.

Start

In 1977, Top Gear appeared on British television. She came out at that time in the format of a TV magazine and practically did not differ from other television programs about cars. For a long time, the transmission format remained unchanged. When it became clear that something needed to be changed, it was decided to restart Top Gear. The presenters, whose names were later known to the whole world, initially did not take part in the creation of the program, except for Jeremy Clarson and James May.

Show reboot

In 2002, the BBC decided to completely revamp the program. Its format was changed and new Top Gear hosts were invited. They were Richard Hammond, James May and returning to the show Jeremy Clarkson. In addition to this trinity, the Stig test rider began to participate in the filming of the program, hiding his face behind a helmet.

The decision to reboot turned out to be correct. The new show has acquired its own unique, unique style. Top Gear's hosts, with their uninhibited demeanor and humor, became instant favorites with the public. In its best years, the audience of the program reached 360 million viewers.

Jeremy Clarkson

He came to Top Gear (photos of the hosts of the program are presented below) in 1988 and brought a lot of new things: interesting ideas, his original manner of communication and rude humor, often beyond the bounds of the permissible. But the audience really liked it, and the ratings of the program began to grow. If initially only a few hundred viewers watched it, then with the advent of Clarkson, their number began to increase. In 1999, the host leaves the program. The reason was his desire to try himself in new projects. Without the eccentric Clarkson, the ratings of the program fell, and the BBC decided to suspend the creation of new releases.

In 2002, Clarkson returns with a proposal for a complete reboot of the show. The producers and management of the BBC took a chance and did not lose. Top Gear went from an educational TV program to an entertaining show, one minute of which cost a lot of money.

Richard Hammond

Before joining the show, he worked on radio. He is sometimes referred to as Hamster by fellow program members and fans of the show. In one of the episodes of the program, Hammond, imitating the behavior of a hamster, ate a cardboard sign. Participation in the show almost ended tragically for the presenter - while piloting a car, he had an accident. Everything worked out, but Hammond asked his colleagues never to mention this incident again.

Top Gear hosts are ardent fans of cars, and no exception. He loves Porsche cars and owns several expensive cars.

James May

Prior to Top Gear, he worked as a journalist for several publications and as a host on two television programs. In 1999, he became the co-host of Top Gear. After the reboot, the show returned to it in its second season. For his extremely cautious driving style, he received the nickname Captain Snail from his colleagues.

stig

Mysterious Machine Tester for a long time remained incognito. All attempts to find out his name were always reduced to jokes by the Top Gear hosts - they said that he was not a person, but a robot, or they called him a “tamed racer”. The Stig, however, was a full-fledged host of the show, and his name was always in the credits for the program. In total, three different Stigs took part in the filming of the program - Perry McCarthy and Ben Collins. Who is hiding under the guise of the third Stig is unknown.

Departure of Clarkson and other hosts - the show must go on

At the end of March 2015, the fans of the show were upset by the shocking news - the oldest participant in the show, standing at the origins of its foundation, Jeremy Clarkson, was fired by the decision of the BBC management. Blame was the explosive nature of the presenter. There have been problems with Clarkson before. He was never distinguished by caution in his statements and tact in his judgments. Repeatedly he had to publicly apologize for his misdeeds. The last straw for the BBC was Clarkson's conflict with one of the show's producers over the lack of hot food on set. On March 25, he was fired. The rest of the Top Gear hosts showed solidarity with Clarkson and announced their departure from the show. Now they are planning a world tour.

Jeremy Clarkson plans to create his own show dedicated to cars. It is still unknown about the format and the TV company that will shelter the disgraced presenter. He was invited to participate in comedy program BBC, but in April 2015 he pulled out of the show.

If the program could survive the loss of one participant, then the departure of all put an end to the history of Top Gear. But the BBC decided to try and keep one of its best television shows. The names of the new presenters of the program are already known. Chris Evans, presenter, producer and businessman, was the first to officially announce his participation in the show. He has long been a fan of the program and without hesitation signed a contract with the BBC for three years.

As the main host, he was given the opportunity to pick up a new team. Evans chose Sabina Schmitz, a famous German racing driver, to be his co-host. Prior to that, she took part in the filming of several issues of Top Gear as an invited guest. Another host of the show was automotive journalist Chris Harris.

David Coulthard is the name of the fourth host of the revamped show. This is a Scottish race car driver and a former Formula 1 pilot. In 2012, he ended his career on the race track and is now trying his hand at a new role as a presenter.

The most unexpected news was the fact that one of the co-hosts of the program will be the star of the TV series Friends, beloved by many viewers, Matt LeBlanc. By the way, he will become the first foreign permanent participant of the show in its entire history. Many fans of the program took the appearance of LeBlanc in it as an attempt to decorate the show and draw attention to it. This is wrong. is a big fan of cars, is familiar with many famous racers and tries not to miss a single Formula 1 race.

The names of the new presenters did not cause a stir among the fans of the program. According to most viewers, no one can replace former members show. Top Gear has already lost about 5 million viewers.

The release of the new Top Gear is scheduled for May 8, 2016. It is then that it will become clear whether the BBC has managed to assemble a bright team that can outshine the former Top Gear hosts. Given their popularity, it's hard to believe in the success of the updated show.

Top Gear (read Top gear, translated as Top gear) - without exaggeration, we can say that this is the most famous car transmission in the world. Even the Guinness Book of Records did not bypass this show and awarded it in 2012 the title of the most popular program in the world with indicators: 212 broadcast countries and 350 million viewers.

For most, Top Gear is inextricably linked with the names of Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, but not many people know that its roots go back to 1977 (Hammond was only 7 years old then). Somewhere in the bowels of the BBC television company, a car show was born, which talked about the latest in the car market and car-related topics. There were two presenters then - Noel Edmonds and William Woollard, but their names are unlikely to tell you anything.

This continued until 1987, when the show's recent producer, John Bentley, brought in former Formula 1 driver Tiff Needle and young auto journalist Jeremy Clarkson as hosts. The program lacked liveliness and freshness; the previous monotonous and boring form of narration got fed up with the audience. And Needle and Clarkson coped with this task perfectly, the ratings went up, the program got a second wind.

More to come - more presenters, more popularity, more criticism ... From 1990 to 1999, representatives of the beautiful half of humanity Michelle Newman and Vicki Butler-Henderson appeared on Top Gear. In addition to them, Steve Berry, the above-mentioned John Bentley, Brendan Coogan, James May and many others appeared on the show. In the mid-90s, this classic Top Gear format reached its peak of popularity among audiences. At the same time, the program was criticized for promoting dangerous driving, disrespect for the environment, and other car-related issues.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever, and this established format was no exception, in 1999-2000 the ratings fell, several presenters left the show, and in 2001 the BBC decided to close Top Gear. But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining, Jeremy Clarkson came to the rescue again. Together with producer Andy Wilman, they proposed a new format for the show, which we all know as the very Top Gear. The show was originally hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and Jason Doe, who tested budget cars and didn't fit in well. The last one in the second season was replaced by our well-known James May. Also in the updated show, a “tamed racer” appeared - Stig, whose identity is always kept secret and gives the program a share of intrigue. Innovations include the Wall of Coolness, the Star in a Budget Car section, and a new way of presenting stories. The icing on the cake was the so-called Top Gear specials, in which the presenters went on a journey, simultaneously completing the tasks of the producers.

The idyll continued until the spring of 2015, when Jeremy Clarkson flared up because after a whole day of shooting he discovered that the food for the hosts was not ready, quarreled with the assistant producer on this basis and even hit him. The BBC management reacted quickly and harshly, Jeremy was suspended from work, and the planned releases of the remaining episodes of the season were taken off the air (they were later carried out by Hammond and May in an empty studio without an audience). Clarkson, in his characteristically ironically cynical manner, tweeted about this: “I shot some good documentaries about war. Let them show one of them (instead of Top Gear)." Fans of the show created a petition on Change.org calling for the return of their favorite presenter, which, by the way, has collected more than 1 million signatures. But despite the huge potential losses that the broadcaster would have suffered due to the loss of Clarkson, his contract was not renewed for the next season. May and Hammond, in solidarity with their friend, also did not sign contracts for the new season.

It was later announced that the show would not disappear, but would return to next season with new faces
mi and in a fresh format. New leading Top Gear became Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc, Sabine Schmitz, Eddie Jordan, Chris Harris and Rory Reed. Of the old line-up, only the Stig remained. The newcomers failed to hook the audience, the program caused a tsunami of criticism, and the innovations were cosmetic rather than revolutionary. At the end of the 23rd season, it became known that LeBlanc wanted to leave the show if Chris Evans did not leave him. Public opinion was not on Evans' side, so he voluntarily left the reformatted Top Gear. The fate of the rest of his colleagues is still unknown, but most likely they will return in the 24th season.

• Some interesting facts about Top Gear:
  • The musical theme that opens the show and sounds at the opening is a song Jessica American group The Allman Brothers Band: