Saw an advertisement for this coming Sunday night's "Top Gear" show. This is the rather lame American version of the show. They will be buying three 4X4s for $5,000 each and seriously abusing them like they always do. A big Bronco, a Wrangler, and a Chevy something.

The show usually reeks, but I'll watch this one.

It's on The History Channel @ 10 PM Eastern, 9 PM Central this coming Sunday, August 14th.

 

The show is on the lame side, but I will watch it just for kicks.

 

They just started broadcasting it here in Latinoamerica, i've liked it so far. Sure, the US guys don't have the charisma of the UK's cast, but the show keeps its formula and that's a great thing, that and the oportunity to overview a lot of great/exotic cars makes it interesting.

 

I saw the advert again. The Bronco is the 92-96 body style, and it's lifted. The Chevy is a K5 Blazer. I haven't seen one of those for a long long time. If wiki is right, the last year for the true K5 Blazer was 1991.

 

If anybody was planning on watching it I wouldn't bother. I've been watching Top Gear UK for years and had very high hopes for Top Gear US. Because of GMs heavy sponsorship of the program, all of the episodes take the same pattern. Get a Ford, GM, and a Chrysler. The Ford will be the first one out, followed by the Chrysler and then the GM takes the win. They are biased and really lousy at hiding it, and it is kind of pathetic. I'll be sticking with Top Gear UK.

 

What happend in the episode? IT aired last night and i forgot to watch it.

 

It was horrible, They destroyed the Bronco.

1st, they tried to climb rocks with a trailer, something blew in the rear end, possible the spider gears, the c-clip came loose and the entire axle with the wheel slid out. They left him behind, they welded a bracket to hold the tire in place meanwhile you think the run would damage the tire in no time, they then showed the bronco appear out of nowhere in FWD form ramming the other two guys trailers while there sleeping. The Bronco gets stuck spinning the two front tires in sand dunes... The jeep had a can of beans they were cooking for dinner explode and caused a short. they temp wired the keeps ignition to hot-wire it to keep going.

2. They all finally made it past majority of the rough areas, the rules said they cannot touch pavement. the jeep guy left his trailer behined, used really long 2x4s and alluminum rollers to push the jeep across, it worked, then the bronco was intentionally flipped on its side and dragged across *#^@ing up the whole side. Then winch back to its wheels in the dirt... The blazer used carpert and attached the carpert over the the entire truck like a bulldozer track... surprisingly it worked...


3. They chopped the roof off the Bronco, threw away the removable top, removed the tailgate and spare tire to save fuel...


4. The Broncos tire that was held on by a steel bracket finally popped...
ending the broncos shot at a win.

The Jeep ran out of gas, the guy ran to the hotel and made it there, the Blazer then made it and handed the keys to the tennant...


AHH this makes me soo mad... hopefully someone can add more details to this.

 

HA! I knew it! I have satellite and it was raining here like crazy. I couldn't even watch it and I was spot on! What a bunch of predictable phonies.

 

Red_EB_Bronco described the Bronco's destruction exactly as it happened. As a former and potentially future Bronco owner I was pretty upset to see a straight, rust free, somewhat rare '96 Bronco completely destroyed for no reason while leaving the Jeep and K5 mostly intact.

This is my first time posting on this board; I found this thread Googling to see if anyone else was upset by this wasteful destruction. This put a bad taste in my mouth for Top Gear, I don't know that I'll watch again.

Couldn't they have found a rusty, banged up hulk of a Bronco to destroy? I know it wasn't a Shelby Cobra but Top Gear is foolish to destroy an uncommon vehicle with a strong fan base - all car guys have a soft spot for some vehicle or another and destroying pristine examples of these types of vehicles a sure way to lose fans.

 

yeah, it was pertty much a waste of a show, and a waste of a straight, rust free bronco.

 

Watching this will make me extremely mad... I can see the entertaiment value of breaking things while playing with a truck in a tv show, but completely destroying a nice example of a relatively rare vehicle is just stupid.

 

That makes me disgusted just reading what they did.

 

Yeah I wasn't the least bit surprised the show ended how it did. The media is so biased towards GM, it pisses me off. It was cool to watch but, the guy who was driving the Bronco should be shot for the lack of off road driving skills. He could have easily negotiated that obstacle without blowing the whole truck apart. I believe they intentionally broke it just to make Ford look bad. If they would have beat the Jeep or the Blazer half as hard they would have broke too. On a more positive note it did show how much punishment a TTB and a BW1356 can handle, mind you they mentioned the truck had 219,000 miles on the clock. Honestly the course they went through wasn't chit, my 79 would have walked through that with ease... hell I could have went through that with my stock pickup!
John

 

It was a '94 Bronco...at least that's what the driver said...not that there's much difference (if any).

Other than destroying what appeared to be a VERY straight Bronco...I thought it was pretty entertaining.

I agree with what's been said...if the Bronco driver had ANY driving skills at all, the Bronco could've held together and finished or won...I think his motto was "floor it and hang on!" He obviously had nothing invested in the Bronco.

I thought all three of the vehicles were nice finds for "under $5k"...all had winches out front...the Bronco looked good with some lift under it and the Jeep was very straight and appeared to be rust-free too.

 

Schlock. But then the vast majority of American television programming is. Theatre is life, film is art, television is furniture. I will say no more.