King's Egg and the Lambo in the East Block (Hungary?) are two supercar crashes I can remember, plus gounding them out trying to get out of the subterranean garage...

But with a new crew, it isn't so much how they treat the cars, as to how they report on them. For the manufacturers, it was worth the risk, because of the relatively high audience figures and the way the cars were generally reported. Very few "normal" cars were reviewed, "because they are boring / sh1t", if I was releasing the new Kia and Hyundai, I wouldn't let TG anywhere near it, unless I had an ST beating sport version...

Have they actually said there will be Top Gear without them?

Personally I think the show has long outrun it's natural course and they should do something new. Top Gear wasn't about the cars, it was about the presenters. With them gone what do they have left?

The Beeb has said it'll continue IIRC. Hell of a trick to pull off though, so I agree, 'reboot' it.

I'm guessing something autocorrect "Koenigsegg" in that post!

I believe for a few events (the speed run that May did in the Veyron for example) he was the only one of the three they actually allowed to drive the car like that, so it wasn't all plain sailing.

That Ferrari/Porsche (was it Audi as well? can’t remember due to it not really being that important) test they were talking about shows that the programme can be seen as toxic even to the manufacturers who actually benefit from their exposure.

Rebooting this will probably involve many meetings in the W1A mould before they decide how they are going to do it.

It was the Porsche 918, Ferrari La Ferrari and the McLaren P1 debacle. Essentially, they all seemed to be paranoid at not winning it, which is why there was such a lot of back and forth and conditions being set etc. For three companies that all compete at the serious end of motor sport, they seemed bloody petrified of a spot of competition. The only real exception that seemed valid was McLaren stipulating that all cars should be the standard factory model as it would be if it were shipped to a customer, because Ferrari have a hell of a history at doctoring review cars to make them better, even to the extent that they'll take it to any test track being used in advance in order to optimise it etc.

You remember Ferrari testing the FXX at the TG test track with Schumi as their test driver? To be fair, one of the reasons for the Stig's anonymity was because so many of the Super/Hyper car manufacturers insist on their own driver, so they dress him up in white overalls for the sake of the appearance of objective testing.

Stiggy didn't crash the Koenigsegg. Koenigsegg's driver did.

I'm sure I heard a rumour that that was Schumacher's own FXX as well that they used.

Pretty sure that when they put the Renault F1 car round it wasn't the resident Stig either. To be fair, the Stig "system" was really quite well thought out from that regard.

True and Koenigsegg were in fact very smart in how they dealt with it - took the car back, made an amendment and then got TG to announce the fact so in the end they came out of it in kind of a positive light.

IIRC I remember TG getting in trouble for borrowing someone's expensive classic car and trashing the tyres doing a lap round the track and having the odd minor scuff here and there - the example of removing the deflectors to get out of the Parisian car park is one, although you'd assume they put them back on after filming the segment. I don't think TG every actually trashed an expensive car. Even their budgets wouldn't stretch to it, one assumes. The Mclaren/Porsche/Ferrari thing was indeed not that the cars were at any risk, just the manufacturers being paranoid about looking like the poor relation in the group. That was about egos not about risks.

Ah, the joys of press fleet cars. They're expected to be soundly abused, and more often than not aren't what you'd pick up off the production line.
Even back in the days of the E-Type, the press cars were much better put together than the production offerings.
For an insight - http://jalopnik.com/5760248/how-ferrari-spins

I autocorrected it myself, although I was tempted to write Fabergé.

I agree with you, but my point is, with a new team, the manufacturers are back to square one with a new team, they aren't sure what they are going to get, therefore they will probably be more cautious.

I hope any reboot won't be as bad as the German or American versions. I don't think the German version even lasted one season. Grip and auto mobil are still the premium car TV magazines over here.

Top Gear stars Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond in ITV talks | Media | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/m ... nd-itv-bbc

ITV 'are doing a Netflix' though (they've been buying up production firms etc), apparently because ad revenue is more problematic than it's actually worth, plus you get rights and profits with the content you're producing and selling globally... And online when it comes to it.

No "do not compete" clause in their contracts?

Might have died when their contracts weren't renewed.

Surely a contract would have to end one way or another before a "do not compete" comes into effect?