Tag Archives: Jeremy Clarkson

Back to the Studio

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Unlikely as it may sound today, in the 2010s the biggest television programme in the world came from an old airfield hangar just outside of Guildford, in which three middle-aged men talked about cars.

The newly rebooted BBC ‘Top Gear’ grew from its producer having to pay audience members from his own pocket to stick around to the end of filming, to the most-watched television event on the planet. Over twenty seasons, dozens of cross-country adventures, and countless celebrity laps in reasonably-priced cars are now embedded in the memory of an entire generation, and Flickr’s NV Carmocs takes us right back to the height of mid-2010’s television with his fabulous homage to the place where it was all made.

With mini-figure versions of Top Gear’s three most famous hosts, a studio audience, and some of the most iconic vehicles and sets from the show, NV Carmocs has captured a hundred Top Gear memories in one spectacular diorama.

The studio set includes ‘The Cool Wall’, a V8 coffee table, the ‘Power Board’, and the plinth for perhaps Top Gear’s most famous ever vehicle, the near-destroyed late-’80s Toyota Hilux, also faithfully recreated in brick form.

There’s a huge amount more to see of NV Carmocs’ incredible mini-figure BBC Top Gear Studio diorama at their Flickr photostream, where over a dozen high quality images are available to view, plus even more of the starring Top Gear vehicles themselves.

Click the link above to go back to studio, and to take yourself back to when Sunday night TV couldn’t get any better…

The Indestructible Hilux

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The best selling pick-up everywhere except North America, the Toyota Hilux is favoured by farmers, NGOs, terrorists, and… Top Gear.

Some twenty years ago Top Gear embarked on what would become one of their most famous sequences ever filmed. And created the best advert for the Hilux that Toyota could have dreamed of.

Famed for their indestructibility, Top Gear decided to put the Hilux’s toughness to the test. They bought an old rusty example from a farm, and crashed it. A lot. They left it in the sea. Dropped a caravan on it. Set fire to it. Hit it with a wrecking ball. And, finally, placed it atop a tower block, and blew it up.

After all of that the Hilux was – unbelievably –  still working, and thus it became a permanent fixture in the Top Gear studio until the show’s demise. Which means the Hilux didn’t just outlive all of the tests that Top Gear put it through, but even Top Gear itself.

This homage to the world’s most famous pick-up truck comes courtesy of NV Carmocs of Flickr, who has recreated the Top Gear Hilux – dents, buckled chassis, fire-scorched paint and all – brilliantly in brick-form.

There’s more of the model to see at NV’s photostream via the third link in the text above, and if you’re one of the few people on earth that haven’t seen Top Gear’s most famous of vehicle tests, take a look at the first two…

A Grand Ending

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After two decades mucking about in cars, and a global audience of millions, Clarkson, Hammond and May have finally hung up their driving gloves. Well, May has. The others probably didn’t wear them.

Their final episode of ‘The Grand Tour’ – Amazon’s monstrously expensive continuation of BBC Top Gear – aired last year, in which the team returned to the location of their first ever road-trip adventure, undertaken some twenty years earlier.

A 1970s Lancia Montecarlo, Triumph Stag, and Ford Capri starred alongside the human trio, likely also completing their last ever drive, such is the nature of television production.

They live on in Lego form though, courtesy of NV_Carmocs (photographed by Studworks), who has recreated each car beautifully in Speed Champions scale. Accurate registration plates, 3D-printed wheels, and a brick-built animal skull on the Lancia enhance the accuracy, and NV_Carmocs has made building instructions available too, should you wish to relive ‘The Grand Tour’s last adventure at home. Have One for the Road via the link above.

Matt LeBlanc Hosting Top Gear?…

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Lego Top Gear

Occasionally we dip into the news here at TLCB, and today is one such day. Speculation has been rife as to who will join Chris Evans for the re-launched BBC Top Gear later this year, from models to motorbike racers the press seem to have a new ‘confirmed’ co-host every other week.

Well now it’s our turn. It’s Matt Le Blanc. Yes the actor from Episodes, Joey from Friends, and the fastest Star In a Reasonably Priced Car is set to join the show as co-host this year. You heard it here first!* If we’re right (we’ve even beaten the BBC themselves to this…) you can expect to read this story in the major news outlets very soon.

You can read our other posts relating to the Top Gear story, which include the wonderful caricatures of past hosts Jeremy, Richard and James by Ralph Savelsberg above, by clicking here.

*Our Elves are everywhere.

Jeremy Clarks-gone

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Lego Top Gear Jeremy Clarkson

The news today that the BBC have taken the decision not to renew Jeremy Clarkson’s contract, and that Top Gear – at least as we know it – is no more, has meant that our Elvish workforce are currently inconsolably sad.

Whilst extreme violence towards colleagues is an almost hourly occurrence here at TLCB Towers, this particular blogger thinks there really could only be one outcome to Jeremy’s moronic outburst. Much as we love the show, it’s probably time to move on – Top Gear existed long before Clarkson, Hammond and May, and it’ll hopefully exist long after them too.

But sadly the news of Jeremy’s axing from the BBC does mean that our Elves are likely to be incredibly mopey for a bit, and that we’re going to be a little more reliant upon you – our readers – for good blog-worthy content.

If you’d like to suggest a creation that should feature here at The Lego Car Blog you can do so by commenting on the Feedback and Submission Suggestions page, or if you have a Flickr account by sending us a Flickr Mail. If you’re feeling especially productive you may even get to write a post yourself – just let us know in your comment that you’d like to give guest blogging a go and we’ll arrange for you to be able to submit your content.

In the meantime you can join our Elves in mourning by clicking here and here to read our Top Gear related posts from times past, including the great recreation of Jeremy, Richard, James and the Stig by Flickr’s Ralph Savelsberg shown above.

Own Brand Supercar

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Lego Supercar

Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson seems to have taken a leaf out of the Elf Book of Mealtime Etiquette, by punching a colleague over dinner, and thus our workforce is pretty inconsolable right now. Inconsolable and violent, seeing as they tend to copy anything they see or hear about from television.

Thankfully the cancellation of BBC’s Top Gear has had less of an affect on our readers than it has on our Elves, and we have several suggestions from you to keep the posts coming. The first is this, by previous blogger and Featured TFOL Alexander Paschoaletto. It’s another ‘own brand’ supercar, following this effort that featured here last week, and it’s as good as any of the real-car-replicas that frequent these pages. Alexander’s design is available to view on both MOCpages and Flickr – click the links to see all the photos.

Tonight on Top Gear… Picture Special

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Lego TopGear Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond James May

 …Jeremy will be mildly offensive, James will wear a wooly jumper, and Hammond will indulge in some bad acting. But we’ll still love it.

BBC’s Top Gear began way back in 1977 as a fairly straight-laced motoring magazine, updating the great unwashed on the latest new cars and motoring news (remember; no internet in 1977!). The original show helped to launch the careers of many TV motoring journalists, including the brilliant Tiff Needell and Quentin Wilson, and of course a certain Mr. Clarkson and Mr. May.

Lego Top Gear Studio Jeremy Clarkson

Top Gear evolved during these first decades becoming more humorous and politically incorrect, helped largely by the arrival of Quentin and Jeremy whose reviewing style could make-or-break a new car. After a one particularly damning review Peugeot famously declared that they were removing all of their adverts from the BBC – but of course due to the unique way the BBC is funded, Top Gear and everything else broadcast contains no advertising at all anyway. Take that Peugeot!

Lego Top Gear Richard Hammond

In 2000 however, the BBC canned Top Gear and sold the production (but not the name) to Channel 5, and Fifth Gear was born. Most of the presenters moved across to the new show and we’ve had to read uninformed ‘This is Fifth Gear you dumb %$@£!’ comments on YouTube (when a video correctly shows old Top Gear) ever since.

The BBC held onto the name for good reason though. In 2002 Top Gear returned, with a new format, new presenters, and – for the first time – an actual studio! Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe fronted this first season, before Jason was replaced by James to give us the genius line-up that has been in place ever since.

Top Gear’s new format has proved wildly successful, with over 350million viewers from 170 countries tuning in every week. And that’s not counting the re-runs showing every hour on Dave.

Lego TopGear Jeremy Clarkson

Such success has led to mistakes though, as Top Gear has become less genuine and more scripted over the years in a quest to recreate past (naturally occurring) glories. It’s also given the presenters an opportunity to make other programmes, and ‘Richard Hammond’s 5 O’Clock Show’ is an abomination that will be forever etched into a dark corner of the televisual hall-of-shame. Thankfully it only lasted a month, and James May’s independent presenting more than makes up for Hammond’s. James even built a house out of LEGO.

Lego James May TopGear

So what next for Top Gear? Well there are now live arena shows once a year, spin-offs for Australia, Russia, Korea, America and others, a new DVD each Christmas, and there’s a whole world of slightly crap merchandising. Andy Wilman (Top Gear’s producer) admits the show – at least in its current format – is probably nearer to the end of its life than the start, but we expect to keep watching for little a while yet. Onwards to season 22!

All of the photos in this post were produced by the exceptionally talented Stephan Sander, who has lovingly recreated Jeremy, James and Richard in brick form.  He’s also constructed superb Lego models of Jeremy’s Citroen Motorhome, a trio of Jaguar E-Types, three Ferraris, three Lotuses and the famous Top Gear studio – complete with a wonderfully diverse audience! We highly recommend a trip to Stephan’s MOCpage to see all the photos. Back to the studio…

On Tonight’s Top Gear…

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Lego Top Gear, Clarkson, Hammond, May, Stig…Richard, James and I undergo some plastic surgery, and the Stig races a car that you can build yourself!

Ralph Savelsberg aka Mad Physicist immortalises the Top Gear team in Lego.

See more on Flickr.