Top Gear: America

Some few years ago, they tried to make Top Gear in America. It didn't work. They hosted it in Detroit, which is the center of car construction but is flat and has boring roads. Car CULTURE is in California, as anyone can tell you. This is where the Drive Through Restaurant was invented, where MacDonalds and Carls Jr both originated. It is a LONG drive from Detroit to California, so the show rarely came to the prettiest roads in the nation, which sort of kills the value of the thing. And the host was said to be mean, rather than funny, and it died after a year of failing to copy UK Top Gear, failing to get audience, and failing to make money. This is a pity.

I think if you wanted to make that show work, you would need to site it in California, not Detroit. We have the better roads with the nice photogenic scenery. The only people who want to see pictures of Detroit are post apocalyptic movie makers. Jay Leno has a fun car review show in LA, but it's not very Top Gear-ish. He buys the cars he reviews. Top Gear reviews cars that are awful too, and say so.

As Jeremy Clarkson likes to point out, America is the opposite of Britain. We drive on the correct side of the road, like most of the world (except Japan and Australia and New Zealand). Our foreign workers speak Spanish rather than Hindi. Few of us buy caravans (trailers) and those who do pull over to let traffic by. In California we only get about 2 months of rain a year, and in England, they only get about two months of dry. So copying the same events of Top Gear? Not quite right. The clever thing is to copy them in the opposite way.

In a theoretical American Top Gear, you'd review motorcycles on Highway 49, Scooters in San Francisco or Newport Beach, Convertibles in Feather River Canyon or Yosemite, pull trailers up the North Coast and camp near the sea without lighting anything on fire. You'd review tow vehicles and trailer types including a Teardrop trailer, ultralight trailer, and full sized airstream fifth wheel trailer, including the ease and difficulty of pulling and the comfort in cooking and sleeping.

You'd also have an event with car camping, which UK top gear apparently is unaware of, which works with both sedans and hatchbacks. There's these folding shelters, called tents, which you erect on the ground and then go inside on soft mats and fluffy bags for sleeping. And then it folds back up and fits easily in the trunk. One gets the idea Top Gear doesn't care for the Coast much. California Coast is fantastic. It has great views, twisty roads, is a wonderful place for dating and driving, and usually has many fun restaurants and campgrounds and plenty of motels. The first motel ever was on the California coast, in San Luis Obispo. It is kind of run-down now, being old, and gets mentioned several times in Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Faith lives there. In any case, the California Coast is often what people see in Car Commercials in the USA, so it would be utterly fitting to be used in a Top Gear program, which you just can't do in a day's drive from Detroit. This is a big part of why that show failed, I think.

I would have the presenters bring their wives or girlfriends along to show comfort of things like Convertibles, riding pillion on a motorcycle. I would suggest more ethnically diverse but still upper middle class hosts, people who like cars and aren't scared of bikes. And maybe a Huell Howser-type host who can easily talk to locals about their place and why it is special or interesting.

I would suggest track day reviews of both cars and tracks. And reviews of roads, so drivers can find good places to go with their sports cars, or what alternate routes to take if they're crowded.

A wine tasting car review, and a Lake Tahoe picnic review. And a Ski Trip review. These are things people actually do in California. Very normal stuff.

It would be amusing to see a race between a scooter and a Tesla S, where the Tesla can go freeway speeds, then needs to stop and recharge all night and the scooter keeps going at 29 mph. And going. And going. Don't cheat, give the Tesla lots of places to stop and recharge, and show the driver visiting many Dennys, and complain of gaining 8 pounds during the trip while the car was charging again. Assuming Tesla builds enough charging stations for this to work. They can stop and walk around old towns, being tourists because the car needs a recharge.

Show off some of the odder vehicles, like the VW 1L, and compare to a Caterham and baby Ninja 300 in a fuel economy race. Have a race between scooter, electric car, and Pacific Starlight Passenger train from LA to Chico or possibly Dunsmuir. Or even Portland. Maybe have the person on the train bring a bicycle to hop off and ride a few miles to a particular inn.

Go to car shows, races, special events like the Rubicon Trail and Monterey Auto Show, and find the balance between gushing humor and honest appraisal. Review the bikes and the convertibles and race Subarus. Get women's appraisal of cars for their comforts and excitement. Top Gear largely ignores women passengers. In the real world, men rarely get to buy cars entirely for themselves.

Only review cars (and motorcycles) that are available in the USA. Don't be afraid to chastise car companies that release yet another bad selling model and ignore new kinds of cars selling well in the EU which have market in the USA, such as turbo diesels. Point out that Fiat and Audi get fewer reviews in the USA because they are expensive and parts are far away while Japanese cars are close. Use the show as a way to present all the vacations in California you can drive to, and how much fun that is. If you built the show to work this way, I think it would succeed.