For those that remember the original Top Gear, Sue Baker has sadly died.
youtu.be/8M0H7xw6jSY
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I really like those old episodes of Top Gear, together with William Woollard I thought they made a great team. Very sad to hear she has gone but at least now released from the misery of MND. RIP
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Yes, remember the original Top Gear well. Sue was a good presenter of this show.
Very sorry to hear about her death. She was from an era when Top Gear was a show of interest to the general motoring public, instead of the entertainment circus that Clarkson and co turned it into.
Wish the BBC would turn Top Gear back to its old format with vehicles of interest to the working person (get away from, the best car is the one which makes the most smoke from the tyres) image.
It's worth looking up the earlier editions of Top Gear (pre Clarkson) and also Drive (Thames TV) on YouTube, to see what a motoring programme could and should be.
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Sad
.....anyone remember "Wheelbase".?...precursor to Top Gear.
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Sad
.....anyone remember "Wheelbase".?...precursor to Top Gear.
Yes. William Woolard was the (main?) presnter there too.
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Women's hour (R4) just paid a tribute to her. I didn't know she was also The Observer's (I think I heard) motoring journalist.
Who replaced her on Top Gear? Jeremy Clarkson!
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Women's hour (R4) just paid a tribute to her. I didn't know she was also The Observer's (I think I heard) motoring journalist.
Who replaced her on Top Gear? Jeremy Clarkson!
Sue Baker presented Top Gear until 1991 and Clarkson joined in 1988...
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Women's hour (R4) just paid a tribute to her. I didn't know she was also The Observer's (I think I heard) motoring journalist.
Who replaced her on Top Gear? Jeremy Clarkson!
Sue Baker presented Top Gear until 1991 and Clarkson joined in 1988...
Weird - I don't recall here at all. I do remember WW and Chris Goffey though, from the pre-Clarkson-Needles era. Back when BBC2 had some decent stuff worth watching!
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Yes, remember the original Top Gear well. Sue was a good presenter of this show.
Very sorry to hear about her death. She was from an era when Top Gear was a show of interest to the general motoring public, instead of the entertainment circus that Clarkson and co turned it into.
Wish the BBC would turn Top Gear back to its old format with vehicles of interest to the working person (get away from, the best car is the one which makes the most smoke from the tyres) image.
It's worth looking up the earlier editions of Top Gear (pre Clarkson) and also Drive (Thames TV) on YouTube, to see what a motoring programme could and should be.
Yes I agree. It turned into a repetitive bore fest. Every episode the same as the last one.
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A purely personal view. Sue Baker was at least a very professional journalist and her death with MND has my sympathy.
Pre Clarkson May and Hammond TG was a worthy but very conventional programme.
CMH radically changed car programming into entertainment - it was imaginative, innovative, challenged convention etc. By the time Clarkson punched the producer it was getting tired.
Subsequent efforts by Chris Evans returned it to unmitigated tedium and was rightly pulled.
The current crew try their best but seem incapable of a programme or stunt which does other than try and emulate CMH to far less effect.
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The problem is the traditional format of TG as we all knew from the 80s wouldn't be a commercial success these days. Back then the presenters used to talk about the kind of things enthusiasts liked, such as opening the bonnet and being told how many valves the engine had, in the days when 16v was exotic. Also I think there's a general lack of interest in cars with the younger generation, we are all on this forum because we are enthusiasts to some degree and may get a distorted view.
TG became an entertainment show with a motoring theme, wasn't my kind of program but was probably what the masses preferred.
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. Also I think there's a general lack of interest in cars with the younger generation, we are all on this forum because we are enthusiasts to some degree and may get a distorted view.
Agree.
What goes on underneath the bonnet appears to be of no interest to them whatsoever.
Maybe that's the "leasing" legacy.
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There is a clear generational difference - generalisations:
- for those born before about 1960-70, the car embodied independence, freedom, control etc etc. The performance gulf between cheap and upmarket was demonstrably huge - cylinders, power, top speed, comfort etc.
- for those born post ~1980 cars are nothing more than expensive "white" goods providing transport from A to B. Congestion, speed limits, cameras etc mean a mundane 1.0L hatch will get more passengers and luggage from A to B as quickly as a 5L supercar capable of warp speeds and wholly unable to exploit them.
Technically cars have morphed from mechanical devices capable of understanding, repair, tuning etc with a limited tool kit by most, to complex IT on wheels properly understood only by experts.
No wonder the modern generation prefer car entertainment to car facts. I have a lot of sympathy for their views.
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There is a clear generational difference - generalisations:
- for those born before about 1960-70, the car embodied independence, freedom, control etc etc. The performance gulf between cheap and upmarket was demonstrably huge - cylinders, power, top speed, comfort etc.
- for those born post ~1980 cars are nothing more than expensive "white" goods providing transport from A to B. Congestion, speed limits, cameras etc mean a mundane 1.0L hatch will get more passengers and luggage from A to B as quickly as a 5L supercar capable of warp speeds and wholly unable to exploit them.
Technically cars have morphed from mechanical devices capable of understanding, repair, tuning etc with a limited tool kit by most, to complex IT on wheels properly understood only by experts.
No wonder the modern generation prefer car entertainment to car facts. I have a lot of sympathy for their views.
Look at "Just Rolled In" on YouTube, unbelievable examples of complete ignorance and stupidity by USA drivers, especially in those states where annual safety checks are not mandatory.
I am thankful the MOT system here helps keep some death traps off the roads
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. Also I think there's a general lack of interest in cars with the younger generation, we are all on this forum because we are enthusiasts to some degree and may get a distorted view.
Agree.
What goes on underneath the bonnet appears to be of no interest to them whatsoever.
Maybe that's the "leasing" legacy.
I think there is less need to know as well - cars are a lot more reliable they they were.
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For a start, modern cars just, er, start. Remember all the business with whether or not to depress the accelerator or not, setting the choke, what do do if it flooded? Just owning a car required a bit of mechanical understanding.
Driving needed more skill with typically half the power to weight ratio, and often no power steering.
By comparison modern cars are about as engaging as a washing machine.
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