Motor Trend - USA (2020-09)

24 MOTORTREND.COM SEPTEMBER 2020

E

very Wednesday night, Josh Gates

takes his fans around the world to

investigate the greatest legends

and mysteries in history on his show

Expedition Unknown. Getting to dig sites,

tombs, and lost cities isn’t like taking a

vacation, though.

The show could just jump straight into

the legend, but a big part of its charm is the

journey. Traveling deep into the deserts,

forests, swamps, and mountains requires

cars, trucks, SUVs, motorcycles, ATVs,

helicopters, boats, snowmobiles, and even

military vehicles, and that’s all part of the

story. Whatever Josh is driving, riding, or

piloting, you’ll hear about how good, bad,

or just plain odd it is.

We got Josh on a video call direct from

the set of his new show, Josh Gates Tonight,

also known as his spare bedroom.

You travel all over the world to investigate

all these great legends, and getting there,

you drive a lot of pretty cool vehicles. Fair

to say you’re a pretty big gearhead? I’m

not like a gearhead in the sense that I’m

not all that useful under the hood, but I

am, I would say, a gear enthusiast. I love

to drive anything; I love to drive cars. I’m

not good at driving with crazy shifters.

I’m an equal-opportunity enthusiast for

automobiles, but my New Year’s resolution

every year is that I’m gonna take a real

automotive class because I spend a lot of

time broken down by the side of the road.

In each episode, you start off in your

office, then you’re somewhere else in the

world and you’re driving some kind of neat

car or riding a motorcycle. Was it part of

the original plan to feature the journey?

That’s always been part of all the shows

that I’ve done. I’m a big believer in that

part of the experience, you know? If you

talk to anybody about travel, so much of

what they’ll tell you about any trip is the

mechanics. How the flight was, what went

wrong, what went right, how they got

stranded at that train station.

One of the things that always struck me

as kind of strange about travel-themed TV

is how glossy it all is, which really doesn’t

match our experiences. That’s fine if you’re

with the old Defenders and the old Land

Cruisers, right, and the Land Cruiser is,

hands down—and I know I’m gonna get

hate mail for this—it’s a more comfortable

car. It is! But the Defender is so sexy.

It’s undeniable. It’s just amazing. So my

favorite experience is anytime I get behind

the wheel of a Defender. You know, old

school, stick Defender, and I’m out in some

exotic place, I just never feel more free or

more excited than that.

The bottom is probably, like, those cars

that you walk up to and you go, “I’ve never

seen this before.” Some Russian, some,

like, Bulgarian vehicle from the ’60s that

has a crazy stick shift. I’ve had some long

days in some of those old Citroëns, those

old Meharis, you know, with the crazy

shifter that comes out sideways, and the

whole car feels like—I mean, the car’s

made of plastic, effectively, right? It was,

like, late ’60s, ’68, something like that, and

they decided, “We should make a car that’s

primarily plastic and fabric,” you know?

And driving around in those things is,

like, you just feel like it’s running on wisps

of smoke. It feels like some Jules Verne

vehicle. It doesn’t feel real.

At the moment, people can only watch

Expedition Unknown in reruns, but you

have a new live show on Discovery

Channel. We started a few weeks ago

making a real short edition of this talk

show—it’s called Josh Gates Tonight. We

started doing little 10-minute versions of

it, and then we did a full-hour version for

Earth Day, which was great, and now it’s

moving to 9 o’clock on Wednesday nights.

I’m gonna be here in my headquarters

away from headquarters here in my home

office. And we’re having a lot of fun.

I think it’s really important in this time

when we are all sequestered at home to

remember that the spirit of adventure is

still alive and that there is this big, wide

world out there that is waiting for us.

And we’re having a lot of fun talking to

explorers and adventurers and really just

trying to connect with viewers and, as best

we can, take them on a little adventure

with us every week from behind this desk.

Scott Evans

doing an aspirational, “world’s greatest

pools” kind of thing or something, but for

us, the journey is the expedition.

I think that by showing not just

the vehicles, but difficult foods, the

breakdowns, the flat tires, the challenges,

it really brings the viewer onto the

expedition. Suddenly, they’re riding

shotgun. They’re not just at home

watching this; they’re a part of it, and I

think the more that you can be real about

what’s going on out there, the better it is.

What are the best and worst vehicles

you’ve driven for the show? It’s a long list,

and I used to do a series before this where

we would almost pick horrible vehicles as

a gag, so I’ve driven just about every weird

car you can name. For me, cars are, as you

know, they’re a very personal thing, right?

There are certain models and makes and

lines on a car that just speak to us.

I love Land Rover Defenders. I love ’em.

I love the old Defender 90; it’s my favorite

car. I just see one—even the 110—but if

I just see one of those things parked, I

just stop in my tracks every time. Uh,

they are not the most comfortable cars

for long-distance expeditions. There’s of

course this great rivalry between people

Host of Discovery Channel’s

Expedition Unknown

Interview

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