I hear that Life on Mars is not the only show going to the US. Top Gear will, too, but it will have Clarkson, May and Hammond fronting it.
   I suppose it would work. Imagine: jokes about the Buick LaCrosse being named for the French Canadian word for wanker; the Chevrolet Malibu being given the Vauxhall Vectra treatment (‘It has all the svelteness of a lead brick … heightwise’) ; how the American Ford Focus is ‘about as convincing as a nun in a Beyoncé Knowles costume’; that there is nothing remotely Swiss about the Buick Lucerne other than its unwillingness to perform; how amazed they are that the Vauxhall Astra, by American standards, is a brilliant car; that the Chrysler Sebring looks like a block of cheese, and obligatory uses of the American term fanny.
   They will have fun with the Toyota Camry, the United States’ best seller, by saying that while the Japanese failed on December 7, 1941, they have managed to infiltrate the country anyway.
   They will joke about old people and the Lincoln Town Car. Well, any Lincoln. Maybe they can fire some off a cliff. Lincolns, that is. Not old people.
   And what to do with the Star in the Reasonably Priced Car? I mean, there is so much crap on sale in the US that they will not be able to decide on a single car! You’d have to have two different cars each week just to give it proper representation!
   I just don’t know how the blokes will do it and Andy Wilman might wind up with a heart attack if he does an extra series, but if it can lift America’s game in car manufacture, then go for it.
   The problem is, knowing how politics take centre-stage in Detroit, the lads could wind up killing the Big Three. And instead of doing something about a bad review by making better cars, we will hear threats about lawsuits and pulling advertising.
   The viewers will love it, provided that Clarkson, Hammond and May do not come back to the UK and tell us that the Pagani Zonda is too cramped and should ride more like a Cadillac DTS. Assuming, of course, that they have not eaten so many hamburgers that they cannot fit in to a Pagani Zonda. Posted by Jack Yan, 05:15  permalink

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