Categories
Kia Top Gear

Cruise and Diaz to appear in Top Gear 15×05

Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz will appear in the next episode of Top Gear. They will be the guests at the wheel of the Kia Cee’d in the “Star in a reasonably priced car” segment.

The news has just been revealed by Richard Porter on TopGear.com. Porter explains, “Back in 2002 when we were planning New TopGear, we used to reflect on the newly minted idea of a star in a Reasonably Priced Car and cackle quietly to ourselves.

“‘Tom Cruise!’ we would smirk. ‘Tom Cruise in a crappy Korean hatchback!’

“That was the gag: massive A-list celebrities finding themselves shoehorned into the kind of car they’d normally never be seen dead in. The whole thing was deliberately preposterous.”

Episode 5 of Season 15 is shaping up as cracker with an Ayrton Senna tribute scheduled, as well as James May nearing 400km/h in a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport.

[Source: TopGear.com | Pic: imdb.com]

Categories
Top Gear

Top Gear – Season 15 preview

Top Gear - 15x01

As most of you will know, the wraps are about to come off a new season of Top Gear (and a new Reasonably Priced Car). The first episode goes to air on UK screens in a few hours and over at the offical site Andy Wilman, Executive Producer, gives us a preview what to expect.

Wilman also holds high hopes for Series 15, “We’ve shot some really good stuff for this run. Those of you who read these blogs regularly know I’m the first to ’fess up if we’ve done a stinker, and that I love a nice dose of pessimism – and you know I thought the last series was up and down. But I’m looking at the contents on my little wall chart thing now, and there’s some quality work here.

“And if you like your TopGear served up with a dash more petrolheadery, then just wait for the Senna tribute we’ve shot, where we’ve got an exclusive with Lewis Hamilton driving Senna’s 1988 F1 car. We all love Lewis for the way he wears his heart on his sleeve when he races, and it’s the same when he shows his emotions for his hero.”

The Senna piece sounds like it has the makings to be an all time classic Top Gear segment. Let’s hope Lewis doesn’t stuff it.

[Source: TopGear | Pic: TopGear]

UPDATE: Speculation via the Car Lounge at VWvortex.com suggests the new Reasonably Priced Car is the Kia Cee’d.

UPDATE 28 June: An informative video, of sorts, featuring Jeremy Clarkson has been posted to the TopGear website. You can see the clip below in which Jeremy confirms the Cee-apostrphe-d’s new status as the Reasonably Priced Car.

Categories
Top Gear

Top Gear – Season 15 trailer

Top Gear - Series 15 preview

Great news for Oscar’s mum and dad; they’ve been featured in a new preview for Series 15 of Top Gear. The new season kicks off this weekend and you can see the latest BBC2 promo right here on AUSmotive. There it is, just after the jump.

If you’d rather not listen to a couple of screaming loons, then take a peak at the Top Gear blog where you can discover the Chevrolet Lacetti has been axed and that the crew had a big meeting and decided to try a bit harder this time around.

Categories
Top Gear Top Gear Australia

Top Gear, Season 15 – due to start in July

Top Gear cast

A number of sources are currently suggesting Series 15 will premiere on UK screens in July. BBC’s scheduling of Top Gear during Germany 2006 shows it is unlikely they will air Top Gear while the World Cup is underway. The final of South Africa 2010 is on Sunday 11 July. This all points to a possible return for Top Gear on Sunday 18 July.

Meanwhile, speculation is building that Channel Nine plans to revive Top Gear Australia with a six episode series to air during 2010. There’s nothing official just yet, so watch this space.

UPDATE 7 June: The boys will be back on UK screens from 27 June.

Categories
Top Gear

Top Gear enters Season 15 with “decade’s greatest” title

Top Gear - Bolivia special

UPDATE 7 June: The boys will be back on UK screens from 27 June.

Top Gear, fresh off the back of its fourteenth season, has just been named the “Greatest TV Show of the Noughties”. This news is the culmination of a poll run by Channel 4 in the UK, the results of which will air on British television screens next week.

Richard Hammond, one of Top Gear‘s star trio, said, “I could never say what the reason is for Top Gear doing so well since we started it, but I think there’s always a sense that we’d still be doing it even if the cameras weren’t here and that makes it real.”

Of course, BBC2 first broadcast the original format of Top Gear back in the late 1970s. However, while it enjoyed a stellar run of some 24 years, at the start of the 2000s the show was cancelled. This paved the way for the emergence of Fifth Gear on Channel Five. But it wasn’t long until the BBC relaunched Top Gear with the current format running since 2002.

Series 14 has attracted some criticism and the program’s long time Executive Producer, Andy Wilman, felt the need defend the show’s direction posting comments on the Top Gear website.

Going into Series 15, then, Top Gear faces its toughest test in some time. Will the baggage of the decade’s greatest title add to the burden of recent criticism, or will it spur the production team on to bigger and better things? While I do think Top Gear will finish before it makes a twentieth season, I do expect that Season 15 will rectify some of the wrongs committed in recent series. Wilman and his trusty trio of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are no mugs, they will put things right.

We shall find out later this year when Season 15 goes to air. If it wasn’t for the 2010 FIFA World Cup I would nominate 19 June as the premiere date, however, the football may mean an early start in May with a hiatus before recommencing in July. This is what BBC did with Season 8 so as to avoid clashing with Germany 2006.

[Source: The Press Association]

Categories
BMW Fifth Gear

Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road – the best in the world?

Is the tight, twisty and ultra smooth Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road in Abu Dhabi the best in the world? In Series 15, Episode 7, Fifth Gear sent Tiff Needell to the middle east and gave him the keys to a BMW M3 to find out.

You can see the 11km stretch of tarmac on Google Maps, or read more about Jebel Hafeet on Wikipedia.

Categories
Fifth Gear Volkswagen

Fifth Gear reviews Golf VI

Fifth Gear returned to UK screens last week with the premiere episode of Series 15. This makes them the first major UK car show to get their hands on the Mk6 Golf. Here’s Jonny Smith’s review.

For more on the new Golf, check out this previous AUSmotive post, including the Trackback links at the bottom of the article that will take you to a wide range of Golf VI related articles.