The Top Gear team prior to Series 35 in 1996, from left to right: Jeremy Clarkson, Steve Berry, Quentin Willson, Tony Mason, Chris Goffey, Tiff Needell and Michele Newman.
The original format of Top Gear ran from 1977 to 2001. There were numerous presenters, including Jeremy Clarkson, Tiff Needell, Jason Barlow and Vicki Butler-Henderson. When the format was officially axed in August 2001, some of the presenters went on to form rival show Fifth Gear, whereas Clarkson went on to form the second incarnation of Top Gear.
Style[]
The style of the original format was a more formal atmosphere, contrary to the current format's relaxed aura. These included regular power tests and virtually nil challenges. Many criticise the current format for not being a car show as such, but an entertainment show not for true car fans.
This version of the programme was also never intended to enter syndicated broadcast, and so each episode would typically be broadcast once on a Thursday with a single repeat the subsequent Saturday, before being committed to archive. Many segments were highly time-sensitive, and so would make little sense to air further down the line when the offers presented to viewers would no longer be valid.
This has since resulted in much of the show becoming "lost", with most episodes produced prior to 1989 no longer extant.
Viewing figures[]
For the majority of its first decade, the show would see a few hundred thousand viewers tuning in each week. By the turn of the 1990s, with the revised team of Ross, Bentley and Pollock at the helm of the show and newer, younger presenters such as Jeremy Clarkson and Tiff Needell, the show would see 1.5 million viewers per week.
By 1998, the show would reach a peak of 5 - 6 million viewers per week, rivaling much of the relaunched format's success, before rapidly dwindling to just 2 - 3 million viewers per week by 2000, owing to Clarkson's departure. The show would remain in production throughout 2001, with a slight increase in viewership before the show was pulled from the air.
Cancellation[]
- Main article: Cancellation of original format Top Gear
After Series 40 peaked at 4.61 million viewers for its fifth episode, and continuing its trend of being among the top 3 viewed programmes for BBC2 each week, viewing figures would not surpass 4 million again for the rest of the series, barring the episode which immediately followed. This was soon followed by the news of Jeremy Clarkson's departure in January 1999, and a subsequent tendency for the show to juggle presenters as the BBC had grown unsure of the show's future.
In addition, Top Gear was no longer alone in its focus of car-themed programming. Granada Television in particular was responsible for two of the show's emerging rivals towards the end of the 1990s; Driven, which aired on the terrestrial Channel 4 service, and Motor Week, on the digital Men & Motors service. The former of these had an arguably superior presentation style which the BBC were keen to adapt for themselves, whereas the latter had managed to snap up long-time ex-presenter Chris Goffey as well as start the career of a particular Richard Hammond.
Furthermore, mechanically-inclined game shows had started to take off, with Robot Wars and Scrapheap Challenge, the former hosted by Jeremy Clarkson for its first series proving particularly popular with audiences of all ages. It can be perhaps inferred that the reimagined version of Top Gear would draw inspiration from the success of these shows which would gradually turn it away from fully factual programming in the name of entertainment.
Having been initially kept off the presenting team in 1992 on account of being too "similar" to Jeremy Clarkson, Series 41 would be helmed by former Autocar writer James May, alongside Brendan Coogan, Julia Bradbury and the rest of the well established team. Unfortunately, bureaucracy would reign supreme and May would be demoted to a print-only role through to 2002, whereas Coogan would be fired following a DUI charge in July of 1999. Bradbury would also leave, her role replaced by Kate Humble.
In August 2001, in spite of constant production and a resurgence in viewing figures, BBC announced that the show would be "put on bricks", that is to say put on hiatus as opposed to being outright cancelled. In its place would be two new shows; Panic Mechanics, a Scrapheap Challenge competitor headed by Edd China and Andy Saunders, and Top Gear: Car Jack, a show which pitted new and used cars and whose name was changed to Wrong Car, Right Car in the wake of the January 2002 carjacking murder of Tim Robinson.