Just incase you were living under some rock, there will be a big race this Sunday. Andy talks about it in his latest blog post:

[...] we’re all excited because we’ve got one of our big races to show you.

Now the last time we did one was a couple of years ago with the Veyron against the plane, and to be honest it wasn’t the film it could have been because it all got a bit silly side up – too big and overblown – and it didn’t have the purity of the run to Verbier or Monaco.

Anyway, we shelved the whole idea of big races until we could think of another one that made sense, and then this year Nissan very kindly decide to launch the GT-R, and the clouds parted.

Sunday’s episode should be epic.

A bunch of what are essentially gossip magazines in the UK have been reporting that Richard and James are threatening to leave the show if they don’t get a pay raise to match Jeremy’s pay. Unsurprisingly this is all a load of BS.

Andy does a good job of explaining the whole situation in his latest blog post:

Just for the record, Richard and James’s contracts are up soon – no big deal, contracts do end – and their agents are negotiating new ones.

They want an amount, the BBC wants to pay a different amount – again, no surprises there, that’s how business works every minute of every day – and there’ll be horse trading until a number is reached.

But let me also say Richard and James have never ever ever asked to be on equal pay to Jeremy. They are the first to admit that he came up with the new show, and that he does nothing but this show and is the engine room of it, whereas they, quite understandably, like to do other projects as well as Top Gear, and therefore the pay should reflect that.

He talks more about it as well as Sunday’s show, but I’ll let you read the rest of his post yourself.

Andy defends Top Gear Stuntman in his latest blog post:

[...] and Top Gear stuntman gets his second outing.

Now let me just dwell on him for a second. People watched him last week, and we knew what would happen – nobody got the point of him.

But stick with him, because hopefully he gets funnier with repetition. Think back to the Fast Show – Jessie’s diets or Unlucky Alf only got funny after they did the same thing 20 times.

I remember during the first series of Top Gear in 2002, the crashing sound of uncomprehending silence from the audience as we introduced the Stig. And now, where would we all be without that lovely backward speedy fellow?

Yep, we got another plug from the man himself. In his latest blog post which is a follow-up to part one, he talks in-depth about the new Australian and American versions of Top Gear:

The big problem is the nature of the show itself. If you’re setting up a foreign The Weakest Link or Millionaire, it’s quite straightforward – you need to copy the set and more or less copy the structure of the show, get a decent Chris Tarrant or a fierce redhead and you’re there.

But Top Gear is much harder because it’s essentially about those three and the way they do what they do, rather than just what they do.

The answer has to be to (a) alter the show to suit – so don’t force the Aussies to do their own Cool Wall if you’re going to watch Jeremy and Richard deliver a tour de force a week later, think of something else to do. And (b) each show must acknowledge the other one exists, so they can take the piss out of each other.

The amount of care and effort he and the other Brits are putting into the two shows is really giving me high hopes that they won’t turn out to be crap. Of course time will tell.

He also mentions all of us here a Final Gear:

In America the issue is different, because although our show isn’t well known there, the ones who do know it are hardcore fans – particularly the peeps on Final Gear. They are very strict about our output and performances, and I noticed quite a few even slating us for Top Gear Ground Force. Actually I’m with them, because we’re not great when we have to be performing monkeys, but it was a bit of a party piece for charity so you’ll have to forgive us.

Now although Final Gear live in fear of BBC lawyers cos they always nick the show, I know that NBC would be as chuffed as nuts if they liked the US version, which is sort of an indicator as to how seriously NBC are taking the issue. Mostly networks just aim for the broad audience and forget the hardcore.

He also goes on to what I’ve been trying to stress ever since the American version of Top Gear was announced:

So will we satisfy the US diehards? Dunno, but partly it’s up to them. If they just compare everything in the US show to what Jeremy, Richard and James do, they’ll be disappointed, because those three did get their first and they are the bollocks at it.

If, on the other hand, they take Top Gear US for what it is – a bunch of guys, hopefully with their own proper relationship, just looking at car stuff in America, but in the Top Gear way – they may like it. And our version will always be there anyway.

I honestly cannot wait for either import, although hopefully the Australian version will come with subtitles. :P

Andy’s written another blog post giving us an update on the filming for the new season of Top Gear. I’ve linked to the threads in our forums about the various segments if you’re interested in more details.

Another quiet week at Top Gear. We’ve just finished shooting our Cheap Alfa Romeos Challenge, Top Gear vs The Germans is also in the can, our new character has just shot his or her films, and in the edit suite I’m very happy with our We Can Make Better Police Cars piece.

Richard’s just shot a birthday tribute to Touring Cars, and Jeremy’s fiddling with his CLK Black film, cos he’s not happy with the structure. There was a scary moment when he said he’d found some music that would improve it, but fortunately this time it wasn’t a 16 minute keyboard solo from the 1970s, and it actually has improved it, not that any of us in the edit will ever tell him.

Elsewhere Lord Stig has come out of suspended animation and whacked in his first lap time of the new run. It’s for the F430 Scuderia and bugger me, glue down any ornaments on top of your telly.

Just over 19 days to go!

A new post by Andy Wilman, executive producer of Top Gear, has been put up (and as of the time of this post, apparently been taken back down) on the Top Gear blog about season 11 and what it will contain.

The post is a must read, but here’s some highlights about the upcoming season with links I’ve added to threads on our forums about the subjects:

Most exciting for me is that we’ve finally come up with another big race – you know, car versus something or other.

The last time we did one was a couple of years ago, with the plane against the Veyron, and in hindsight we lost the plot in that one – too pompous, too overblown and preposterous, too much work on the scripting to make it funny. This one is back to basics, more hardcore, mega car, mega opponent, with a solid premise. And a clue for the geeks: we did it in Japan.

Elsewhere, we’ve tackled rural issues such as the fox hunting ban and fascist ramblers. With the ingenious use of cars, we go to war, literally, with a German version of Top Gear (which incidentally means Sabine is back) and there’s a very exciting shootout with the RS6 against the most suicidal of skiers.

Jeremy also reckons he has an ingenious plan for improving British police cars, so we’ll be testing that theory, and we’ve always said you can’t be a true petrolhead until you’ve owned an Alfa, so now it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.

There’s some good metal too – new Evo X against the Impreza, CLK Black and hopefully the Mazda Furai. Overall though, the other thing we’re going to do is try and speed up a bit.

I can’t wait.

Top Gear’s producer Andy Wilman has blogged about Lewis Hamilton and his impressions about the guy. Word is Hamilton wants to come back once it’s dry and try again. What a guy.

Also new is 11 images taken at the rehearsal for this Sunday’s episode. Check them out if you want a sneak peak.

The Telegraph has a really interesting interview of sorts with Top Gear’s producer, Andy Wilman. Well worth the read.

The uncut version of the news from the soon-to-air Top Gear episode today won’t be out until Tuesday according to Top Gear producer Andy Wilman’s blog post. It took them too long to edit today’s episode, so it had to get pushed back a day. You guys will just have to just watch Fifth Gear tomorrow instead, not that that’s necessarily a bad thing…

Nothing makes me happier and more honored than when the people behind the cameras think enough of this site to visit it themselves, especially when it’s Top Gear’s producer, Andy Wilman.

Yet you never really get a sense of whether you’ve pulled it off until you’re at home watching it on the box at the same time as everybody else.

Afterwards I made my usual masochistic trip to the computer and logged on to Final Gear to see what our harshest, fairest, sharpest and most loyal critics had to say. I love the spirit of that gang, and they are superb at spotting where you’ve made a horlicks of things, but they seemed to like this one.

If only they’d known what a bitch it was to make. We came back from the Pole with over 180 hours of rushes to condense into one hour, and after about three weeks in the edit we started to go a bit mental.

Andy, I think I speak for all of us when I say well done, mate. Wednesday’s episode was just staggeringly awesome. Keep up the awesome work.

You can read the rest of Andy’s article at TopGear.com.