If you, like me, love Top of the line equipment2015 will forever live in your memory as the day Top of the line equipment theme music is dead.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for Amazon to give us hope that things weren’t over yet, as the infamous trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May signed a long-term, big-money deal with the company tied to questionable products.
That deal led to the launch of Amazon Prime Video in Australia (and indeed many other places around the world) and opened the door for Australian car enthusiasts to see more of their favourite car presenters.
Say what you want about The big trip, Some people love it, some people hate it. The same can be said for Top of the line equipment. I won’t hold it against anyone who doesn’t enjoy watching three idiots fall and occasionally drive.
However, I will forever consider September 13, 2024 as my equivalent of American Pie Day.
Of course, I don’t have a Chevy and I won’t be visiting any dykes, but I’ll be spending a long time when the intro to Clarkson, Hammond and May’s final special ends.
You see, I won’t be here, working at Car expertcreate automotive video content if none exists Top of the line equipmentI’m 33 years old, which means that for almost two-thirds of my life, I’ve had the privilege and pleasure of watching anything Top of the line equipment professionally edited by the team and broadcast on television.
It was in 2006 that I first discovered the holy trinity of automotive journalists (apologies to our locals) Car expert journos). It was a slightly older episode where they raced an Aston Martin DB9 on the Eurostar from England to Monte Carlo. That day caused a chain reaction.
I was obsessed. And as I got older and got more interested in filmmaking, I started paying more attention to the production process. The way the show was shot, the editing, the color, the sound.
Yes, on the surface the film is about a middle-aged man cruising around an abandoned airbase in a beautiful sports car, but dig deeper and you’ll find a team of master craftsmen perfecting their craft.
Top of the line equipmentand then The Grand Tourpioneered many incredible car filming techniques – even influencing the way some movies are shot today.
Consider in-car cameras. While the idea of a camera mounted inside a car has been around for decades, they generally require frequent stops to change film, or reset the lights, or replace batteries.
The BBC production team, led by Andy Wilman, found new ways to mount small cameras on car windscreens, even creating mounts, vacuum rigs, and long-term recording/power systems so people could drive all day without constantly worrying about whether the cameras were recording everything.
They pioneered drive-to-drive filming, initially strapping a man and a camera to the back of a Range Rover and then partnering with outside companies to develop smaller externally mounted systems that could be used for longer periods of time, rather than relying on the “traditional Hollywood” method of a Russian crew.
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Source: Photography Jacek Wyszynsk
Then there’s the editing. The ability of Wilman, Clarkson, and the post-production team to take hundreds of hours of footage and turn it into a moving, engaging, and beautiful work of art set a new industry standard – one that has arguably never been improved upon.
I, along with dozens of others working in the automotive press, owe our existence to these people. The techniques they developed and the styles they pioneered are used by us every day.
How we mount cameras in cars, the positioning and lighting – all learned from Top of the line equipment. The way we film cars driving past the camera, performing stunts, or even long road trips are all influenced by them.
While here at Car expert We’ve moved away from the heavy storytelling style of video content in an effort to help people buy new cars, and when the opportunity arises, we’ll weave something into the video – especially when it’s not a typical car review.
We all knew this day was coming. As the three of them began working on their own dedicated projects, it was clear they were looking to put the car trips behind them. I can’t blame the guys, 22 years is a long time in any job role, let alone the workload that comes with doing this job.
The adventures where they spend a week or two in the wilderness to bring us 90 minutes of fun, entertaining television are intense. But they always present a beautiful, polished product, even if you don’t necessarily like the content.
As I slowly accept that I just watched their last outing, I’ll remember the good times.
Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust (aka Geoff), TG V12 train, Bugatti Veyron racing with slow planes, Veyron racing with super fast planes, Hammond’s horrific rocket car crash, Michael Schumacher being “unmasked” as The Stig, awesome Senna short documentary, Hammond’s multi-million dollar electric car crash.
There’s also the original Botswana Special, the India, Vietnam and Arctic Specials, building John and driving him through Mongolia and Jeremy Clarkson crying in The Grand Tour tent when they announced they would no longer host audience-oriented television shows.
See them perform Top Gear Live and once Top Gear Festival in Sydney is still fresh in my mind.
The things these shows have done over the past two decades, the spin-offs they’ve spawned, the recognition they’ve gotten is something any other TV show could only dream of. But in the end, they’ve always been just a “tiny car TV show on BBC 2”. And that little car TV show changed my world.
So as I sat in silence, reliving the final scenes of the film, the melody of American Pie played in my head; “and the three men i admire most, the father and the holy father, they took the last train to the coast, the day the music died”.
Of course, our trio had much more successful careers than Buddy Holly and his friends, plus Jezza, Hamster and Mr Slowly may well have driven, but not to the coast (since Zimbabwe is a landlocked country). But take a moment, turn on your music player of choice and play “Jessica” by The Allman Brothers, for the love of old age.
Alike Top of the line equipment before it, while The Grand Tour As enduring as the name may be, it would never be the same without our three anti-heroes. I imagine Mr Wilman will also return his parking pass, as will much of the crew that followed them from the BBC to the Amazon.
This is not only the end for Clarkson, Hammond and May, but it could also be the end for the entire crew that has brought us joy over the years.
For me, September 13, 2024 will forever be one of my saddest days… in the world.
