Top Gear

Last night here it was the last episode of series 15 of Top Gear on BBC America.
We all know Top Gear, the greatest motoring programme on television. An hour of joyous entertainment about motoring.
Except for the most part last night wasn't joyous. Sure, Jeff Goldblum drove the reasonably priced car in no gear higher than third and the new Ferrari is quite beautiful. Last nights show will be remembered by most for the sad journey through the history of the British sports car. As our trio of presenters took their historic British Sports cars from the Lotus factory in Norfolk to the remains of the TVR plant in Blackpool via the shell of the Jensen works in West Bromwich. Sure, we had some fun on the way, carrying impossibly large loads with the roof down and almost blowing up and drowning the Stig.
But the scenes that stick in my mind are those of Clarkson, May and Hammond peering through the broken windows at the Jensen offices imagining what it must have been like there in its heyday with designers and engineers getting excited about their designs. Then at the TVR plant rummaging through the moulds for the car bodies.
"Isn't that the mould for the bonnet of your car?" Inquired Clarkson of May.
"I hate this place" James May was heard to say. Yes there was some amusing graffiti on the walls for us. But overall it was sad. They all looked sad too.
Clarkson said that there were good reasons that the British sports car builders went belly up, he's right and I'm not going to get into them because at the time I wasn't old enough to understand it all. Heck, even MG had just about folded by the time I was learning to drive.
But despite all this sadness what came through was how marvellous the British Sports Car industry had been. It was something for the British Car enthusiast to be proud of, no, not just enthusiasts but the nation as a whole should have pride in the names Lotus, TVR, Jensen and all the other marques lined up in the factory building at the end of the film.
I had been an owner of an MGB for less than a day when I watched that, but it made me very proud to own a piece of British automotive history and yes, at the end of the show I did go into the garage and take a good look at my new purchase.