Top Gear v Fifth Gear

Sunday saw the return to BBC2 of Top Gear, this is just a few weeks after Fifth Gear returned to our screens. Now I like Top Gear and I like Fifth Gear but which is the best? There's only one way to find out...

FIGHT!



Sorry, went a bit Harry Hill there.Well, as ever, it comes down to what you want from a TV motoring programme.

This week on Fifth Gear, we had Vicki hooning around in a Rolls Royce Ghost. Yummy - and the car looks nice too. Jason was hooning around comparing BMW and Nissan hot Cabrios and Jonny did the sensible item on the Skoda Superb estate - "superb" being Skoda's name for it - not mine - I'd have called it the "Skoda Very Good in a Fast & Practical Sort of Way".

Top Gear, on the other hand and on the other channel, went with Jeremy hooning around in the new pared-down-for-speed Bentley. They then had James driving up to the edge of the Icelandic volcano and catching fire. Then it was the death of the Chevrolet Reasonably-Priced Car followed by various celebs and a page 3 girl setting times in the new one and finally Jeremy hooning about in a Reliant Rialto.

Top Gear got a hell of a lot more in - but then again, they have a full hour to play with. Fifth Gear has been shrunk down to half an hour which, allowing for adverts and the annoying competition leaves only about 20 minutes of actual car time. I suppose the competition is a necessary evil - the show was nearly cancelled for financial reasons so getting gullible people to answer easy questions with expensive phone calls must bring in revenue. Which British Driver won the Formula One World Championship?
A: Damon Hill,
B: Harry Hill,
C: Benny Hill

I mean - Duh! I could write even easier ones though: What's the round, rubber thing you find on a car wheel?
A: A Tyre
B: Quantum Physics
C: Frank Lampard

As you will have noticed, you get an awful lot of hooning going on in car programmes. Usually in fast exotic cars well beyond the budget of your average blogger. This is nice but gets a bit over the top. Top Gear tends to space out the hooning with comedy pieces. Fifth Gear tend to use sensible pieces. I like both. Top Gear's laptimes bit and the Rialto bit were very, very funny but I also want to know about affordable cars and what's new and what they can do.

So, I watch both programmes and I enjoy both programmes but I also want a bit of the show that they both evolved out of - it was on from 1977 to 2001 with various presenters including Angela Rippon, William Woolard, Jeremy Clarkson, James May (very briefly), Vicki Butler-Henderson and Tiff Needell. It was called "Top Gear"