These achievements, however, weren’t exactly
front of mind back in the days of those very first
shows. In fact, I distinctly remember the most
pressing issue on the morning of the first show
was not world domination, but how to position
the Mazda 6 in front of the cameras on account
of Jim, one of the researchers, having backed it
into a lamppost on his way to the studio. Still,
at least the car was there, which was more than
could be said for the Saab we’d tried to film the
week before, when Hammond and the film crew
had been left staring at an empty parking space
because Rowland, another researcher, had taken
it to go and visit his relatives.
We were, back then, completely cock-arsed.
Take our genius plan to make lap times for the
cars fair and equal. This was Britain—what if it
rained? What if it was sunny? How could we cre-
ate a level playing field each week? I know, let’s
wet the track in certain places to make it a bit
wet and a bit dry? So we got two massive bowsers
to spew their contents onto the track, and were
baffled to discover that (a) they only managed
to cover a tiny portion of Hammerhead, and (b)
tracks dry quickly on a sunny day. This was before
we even remembered that rain doesn’t drop just
in neat sections of one’s choosing.
Still, at least Operation Wet Certain Bits of
The Track To Match Rainfall That Doesn’t Actu-
ally Behave Like That Anyway would have made
the studio audience laugh, which wasn’t exactly
happening in the studio.
The main problem there was that the audience
would turn up at, say, 2 pm, then stand on their
feet, in a hangar that we’d either forgotten to heat
up or cool down, for hour after hour while the
presenters tried to record their links. We had no
autocue so each piece required about 98 takes,
and Jason Dawe bore the brunt of it with his
lengthy and wordy Used Car News section.
Today, a pair of tickets to watch the show can
fetch 10 grand at a charity auction, but back then,
by 8 pm, when we still hadn’t finished recording, I
used to bar the exit door and plead with people to
stay: “No, I understand you have to get home to
your dinner and families, but please please stay
for another half hour while Jason nails that story
about secondhand Citroens.”
However, in all these ham-fisted goings-on,
something was starting to click. For starters,
the new directors had brought in fresh camera-
men and editors who raised the quality of the
pictures and the music to another level. Then
you had people like Jim, who, when not backing
cars into things, unleashed his weird lateral brain
to brilliant effect. “Everyone jumps a motorbike
over buses, but let’s see how many bikes a bus can
jump,” was one of his early and superbly point-
less suggestions. He then got carried away trying
to find a bear that could drive an automatic,
switching to a monkey when the bear option
didn’t work out, but the TV animal handler lady
screamed down the phone at him that she’d pros-
ecute us if we dared put a primate in a car.
The combination of highbrow science like
this, sexy films and a slowly improving studio
started to bring us a decent audience of around
three million. But Jason wasn’t working out as a
presenter, so we decided we’d let him go at the
end of the first series. For a while, the BBC man-
agement had a wobble about Richard staying, and
in their classic HR style said to him in December:
“We may not want you back for the second series,
but anyway, have a good Christmas.”
There was no doubt, however, that Richard
would stay, so we were looking for a third man.
It was about this time we had another visit from
the BBC Meddling Department, who told us that
market research found our show was attract-
ing young, lifestyle, trendy viewers to BBC 2 , so
perhaps we should think about getting a young,
lifestyle, trendy presenter. Ever keen to assist, we
searched high and low and eventually came up
with just the man: James May.
His hair looked like it had been lowered on
by a trainee helicopter pilot, and his shirts were
clearly styled by toddlers, but since we didn’t
have (and from the on-screen evidence clearly
never ever had) a wardrobe budget, there was
nothing much we could do in the sartorial aspect.
But like Jeremy, James’s print background
had given him a shrewd and witty eye on the
car world, and he and Hammond bonded well.
The other good thing about James was that on
nearly all issues motoring, he agreed with Jeremy
on absolutely nothing; and if you think Jeremy
can stick with his opinion, he is a mere striplet
of corn blowing in the wind compared with the
stubbornness of May.
With our trio now complete, the growing of
the show could begin. In our heads, we were mak-
ing a car show for car dweebs, but as Series Four
went to Five and then to Six, we realized that the
growing was sprouting in directions we hadn’t
reckoned. Kids were watching, grannies were
watching, and if I had a quid for everybody who
said, “I’m not into cars but I like watching your
show,” I could have afforded to quit the show.
At one point, the Meddling Department ar-
rived bearing more news from the outside world.
Nearly half of our audience, they declared, was
female. Before they had a chance to follow that
up with the inevitable suggestion to get a woman
presenter, we shooed them out and carried on.
At first, I couldn’t work out why so many
girls were watching, because, let’s face it, those
Ah...the sight of these
three on thAt iconic
set is unforgettAble88 toP geAr PhiliPPines WWW.topgear.com.ph