Car Shows

I TiVo a fair amount of car shows, which can definately be sorted into better and worse categories. No doubt I'm wrong, but Top Gear just pisses me off. I think it's intentional. Robert Farago [The Truth About Cars] wades in with John Bolton-like tact on Jeremy Clarkson:

Jeremy Clarkson is a one man army. The English auto hack wields barely-judged invective like a malarial Crusader swinging a Damascus double mace, flailing at anyone and anything within reach. Self-deprecation and self-righteousness are the spiked balls in question. While the combination is a clear indication that Clarkson suffers from a bad case of class-related self-loathing, the journalist's deep-rooted insecurities don't detract from the fact that he'’s superb writer, with an instinctive command over the English language.

Read the rest if you like, but if you want to talk about hacks, I think the Car & Driver and Motor Trend shows have more to answer for: Motor Trend has never met a car they don't love ("The Hitlermobile is sporty and a class value, and has better trunk space than some of its competitors to boot."), while Car and Driver is all about the BMW - witness their last "comparo" where they praised the BMW's quality even though it pulled a HAL-"I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you use the brakes now" during the test. Yes, BMW's are nice to drive, but everyone and their mother knows they are maintenance timebombs. Unless you have piles of cash moldering in your basement, you'd better be on warranty. Yet no review ever mentions this - again, even when the brand new car nearly blue screen of deaths during the test drive!

But I digress. My favorite new car shows are the somewhat overlapping Dream Car Garage and Sports Car Revolution. They too shill for their aftermarket sponsors, but they do include a fair bit of quantitative testing, and if something doesn't work, they seem to say so. The three ring circus is run by Tom Hnatiw and Peter Klutt with Canadian self-depreciation, and even better, they pull that off without constantly teeing off on the neighbors to the South (Mexicans?) (They aren't pro-American, they're just too busy hosing each other. 'Take off, Hoser!") (unlike the aforementioned Brits). Highly recommended show(s) even though I'm not quite sure why they have two of them.