I’ve worked on Top Gear for 15 years, getting the chance to travel all over the world and film amazing cars.
As Exec Producer and creative lead of the show, it is my job to help the team to come up with ideas and move them through from paper to production. In this new era of the show it is an important balancing act to move the show forward and give it a new lease of life, whilst also being true to the core of what the Top Gear brand is.
How do we choose the locations?
We always start with the car first on Top Gear. Find the car story and build the locations around that.
For example in the first episode of the new series, we put Chris, Paddy and Freddie back into their first cars. Rather than take them on a trip down memory lane around the streets of Bolton, we took this nostalgic road trip as far as we could and told them to drive to the birthplace of humankind… in Ethiopia.
Being able to take a local topic and explode it on an international scale is what we are lucky enough to be able to do on Top Gear. Make the ordinary extraordinary. Take a car that has spent its life tackling the A roads and B roads of the UK, and drop it in the hottest place on the planet in the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia, and you have a Top Gear film.
In another film we test how fearless Freddie is by taking him to Iceland to compete in the most terrifying motorsport in the world, Formula Offroad. It is essentially 1000 horsepower off roaders with huge paddle steamer tyres that are challenged with scaling 100ft vertical cliff faces. When you are standing at the bottom of ‘the course’, it defies any sort of logic or physics that this is possible, but Freddie gives it a bloody good go.
It’s great, but it doesn’t come without challenges
As with any big project, there are always pitfalls that we need to watch out for. Fortunately - and I’m probably tempting fate now - we’ve been doing this for a long time so we have a fair idea where they are.
We do what we can to map out the pitfalls before we get there. We have a producer recce locations and a local fixer who helps us on the ground with filming permits and organise getting the cars and everyone there on time. But there’s only so much you can do, sometimes we need to change our plans on the fly.
This series, we go to Borneo in rare cars. These aren’t cars that are rare because they’re expensive and only a handful were made. These cars are rare because they’re terrible cars and all their siblings have died out.
When we recced the location, the roads were perfect. They were relatively smooth and great to drive on, but it was another story once we got there for filming after an intense period of. The roads had become thick with mud and our Austin Allegro estate and Matra Bagheera were completely out of their depth. We had to think on our feet and make sure we got the right shots, but it was definitely a good test for the car.
The ingredients for a great drive
The things that make a great road are:
- Smooth unimpeded road. A newly laid ribbon of tarmac and no traffic is a good start.
- Cornering. You don’t want all hairpin bends because you have to constantly reduce your speed to take them, but mix it up with long sweeping bends to maintain speed and test the performance of the car you are in.
- The right car. Anything that is engaging to drive. The Ford Fiesta ST, Alpine 110 or any Caterham in the right weather would do the trick.
- Scenery. You have to have a beautiful view, driving is great, but great scenery can make it even better.
- Mates. Last but definitely not least, you need to be with friends. Driving is about experiences and not just with the car. It is about who you are with and where you are going.
My favourite road we were on in the new series was in the Simian mountains in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia has had a lot of investment in its roads from China and is the fastest growing economy in Africa. One reason we wanted to go there was to show how much the country has changed. I think a lot of people still see Ethiopia has BandAid, but it’s totally the opposite. I can always tell we’re somewhere special when the crew - who’ve all worked together since Top Gear began - are speechless.
The roads are brilliant and one particular road had all of the ingredients I mentioned above. There was no one on the road, the tarmac was almost brand new, it descended down a beautiful valley and I was with friends that I’ve worked with for years. Perfect.
Don’t forget to watch Top Gear on 主播大秀 Two and 主播大秀 iPlayer at 8pm on 16 June.