The Top Gear Story - The 100% Unofficial Story of the Most Famous Car Show... In The World. Martin Roach
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the show has had to come up with other ways of reviewing cars, the basic staple item on a programme such as this. For the majority of less-glamorous cars, one way of doing this is the so-called ‘Cool Wall’.
Each week, photos of cars are held aloft and discussed/berated by the presenters, with occasional interjections from the studio audience, after which the threesome agree which side of the wall they can go on: ‘Seriously Uncool’, ‘Uncool’, ‘Cool’ and ‘Sub-Zero’. Each presenter has different and highly subjective criteria for classifying a car’s cool factor – for example, Clarkson uses the idea of whether the car would impress his celebrity crush, Kristin Scott Thomas (or more latterly, Fiona Bruce). Other times, he disagrees with Hammond and takes precedence by putting the photo out of reach of the diminutive star (when Clarkson slipped a disc, Hammond got his own back by placing a car photo at the bottom of the board). In Series 4, they also added the ‘DB9 Super-Cool Fridge’, having reviewed that car in a category of coolness all of its own (later adding another Aston, the Vantage). There has also been the ‘Crock/Classic’ Mini-Cool Wall for more vintage cars.
One definite rule-of-thumb is that any car owned by one of the presenters – regardless of how super-cool it had previously been – is automatically consigned to the ‘Uncool’ section. This seems harsh when it traps cars such as the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder purchased by Jeremy after reviewing it in Series 8, Episode 7. Comparing the convertible Lambo with the new Ferrari 430, he damned the latter (unusual for Clarkson) as boring and serious, while revelling in the madness of the baby Lambo. He openly admitted to being in love with the Gallardo and admits – like love – that his feelings were not necessarily rational (he wasn’t a fan of the hard-top Gallardo). So irrational in fact were his emotions that he promptly went and bought one, but in doing so consigned the beautiful supercar to eternity on the ‘Uncool’ end of the Cool Wall. (Note: the Top Gear team seem to like Lambo drop-tops, a style of car that had historically seen numerous supercars turn into badly handling death-traps; when Hammond went on the Paloma bull run, he happily compared the Lambo Murcielago to that adrenaline-fuelled experience.)
The ‘Uncool’ status bestowed on any presenter’s car is perhaps more understandable for James’s Fiat Panda, whose picture ended up several metres left of the board in an ‘Uncool’ anti-Aston section of its own. Usually, automatic ‘Uncool’ models include hybrids, diesels, most 4x4s, People Carriers and German cars. Worse still, the BMW 3 Series E90 was considered so ugly that it was not placed on the Wall at all.
Although many cars are consigned to oblivion due to entirely subjective reasoning, there are several hard and fast rules for avoiding the ‘Uncool’ part of the Wall: avoid buying celebrity cars; also those that are ‘fashionable’ such as Audi TTs or VW Beetles; supercars and sports-cars are not guaranteed shoo-ins; customising, accessorising or souping up an ‘Uncool’ car won’t suddenly make it cool; the cost is irrelevant but the colour isn’t; some cars are cool for boys but not for girls (and vice versa) and finally, it’s not about an entire brand, it’s each individual model.
After a fire on set in the summer of 2007, the ‘Cool Wall’ enjoyed a sabbatical before returning for Series 11 and is now long since established as a vital part of the show. As an aside, the Top Gear team also sell a Cool Wall Activity Sticker Book with its very own ‘Cool Wall’ poster, which you can put up and then attach various stickers of cars where you think they deserve to go. There is also a ‘Cool Wall’ app for the iPhone, where you can play along, too. I have both, naturally.
There’s a conker tree at the end of my lane. My two little petrol-heads have just discovered the joy of collecting conkers and we are currently soaking the two largest in special vinegar-and-water solution prior to launching an all-conkering (apologies) assault on the English championships. It’s a fabled and longstanding rite of passage for any self-respecting boy and his father. Of course, when you grow up, you still want to play conkers but society dictates it really wouldn’t be decent for grown men to continue with such childish games … unless of course you work on Top Gear.
With Series 1 flying the flag for testosterone-fuelled challenges and supercars, it was clear that the new version of Top Gear would not shy away from the more dramatic world of motoring. The on-screen chemistry between the three presenters was immediately apparent from May’s first show in Series 2 and this is often best seen when they are basically fooling around. And what better to fool around with than a caravan?
The series has a hate-hate relationship with the little white traffic jam-makers. Over the years, Clarkson and chums have made no secret of their intense dislike for the homes-on-wheels (perhaps on a par only with cyclists). This has manifested itself into numerous hilarious stunts. The first time that the innocent ‘van’ was desecrated came in Series 2, Episode 1, when they burnt the show’s debut caravan with the afterburner of a drag-racing jet car; however, the tense relationship really worsened in Series 2, Episode 6. For this show, the team tested the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII versus the Subaru Impreza WRX STI. After the clip had been shown, Clarkson revealed an out-take of himself in one of the cars, going berserk as the crew followed a caravan up ahead at a snail’s pace. He went on to describe the hotel-on-wheels as ‘the bane of our lives’. Clearly, something had to be done.
In response, the Top Gear team attempted to set a new land speed record for caravan towing. The current record stood at 128.8mph, so they sent new boy James May to a track to see if he could top that. Using a turbo-charged Mitsubishi Evo 7, which could generate more than 700bhp, a stunt driver called ‘Lee’ (notably not The Stig as would be the norm in later series) and an Abbey GT 214 caravan, they attempted – and failed – to beat the record time. A combination of cross winds, caravan kitchenette window blow-outs and ultimately, the Evo blowing a piston defeated them. Still, May had his revenge and dropped the caravan from a great height off a crane at the end of the show.
In Series 3 (otherwise largely dull when it came to fun features), the schoolboys/presenters took the caravan owner’s car of choice – a Volvo 240 estate – and attempted to see how many caravans it could jump over, Evel Knievel style. They chose the car because it was ‘the caravan’s friend’. ‘Every summer they ruin our roads,’ declared Hammond, before going on to slaughter caravans as transport vermin. So, how many caravans could the Volvo jump? Not many, it transpired.
The vendetta was taken up a notch in Series 4 while playing darts with cars. Using a gas-powered cannon normally reserved for mad stunts in James Bond movies, Hammond and May perched themselves on the top of a quarry and proceeded to fire six old cars at a dartboard, way down below. After several disputed shots, they decided to clarify the bullseye with the placement of the ultimate target: a caravan. With telling poignancy, the very last car is a caravan-loving Volvo and Hammond triumphs by hitting the bullseye/caravan perfectly after which he announces: ‘We are all winners because the caravan bought it!’
However, it was in Series 5 that Top Gear revealed their most vicious-ever caravan abuse when James May joined Hammond to play the aforementioned ‘Caravan Conkers’. It was actually the much-maligned Health and Safety Executive (HSE) who inspired this challenge after they had declared in 2009 that children wanting to play the age-old game should wear safety goggles (Clarkson has gone on record as calling the HSE ‘the PPD’, which stands for ‘The Programme Prevention Department’).
Two enormous green cranes were provided by the same specialist team who had worked with the car-launching hydrogen cannon for the previous car darts sequence. Hammond and May then proceeded to engage in a three-round competition of conkers using a selection of six of Britain’s finest fibreglass homes, such as the Musketeer, the Sprite and of course, the Ford Mondeo of the caravan world, the ubiquitous Monza. Before battle commenced, there was much talk of 3-er and 9-er conkers, with each presenter displaying a genuine glint that betrayed a childhood spent playing the actual game in the playground.
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