Car shows that didn’t age well.

GCrites80s said:

Did some band that knows nu-metal, the blues and shredder stuff go into the studio sometime in 1999 and cut the instrumental bits live in one big 8-hour session and create all the background music for every car show and video game made from that point on? Then these show and game production companies came along and cut it up into little bits for beds and menus?

Actually yes, but I don't have any real source to prove it with. Lots of the B-side and lower grade video game menus can literally be garage bands hired for short gigs- most egregarious example was Doom on the Playstation and 3DO, which had a custom soundtrack from a garage band the programmers knew because of licensing incompetence.

Pinks for sure. Basically any cringy 2000's era American car show which is pretty much all of them that weren't shown on Speedvision.

I set the bar pretty high though, I remember watching stuff like Victory by Design the Ferrari episode was probably the best of the series.

Mr. Peabody said:

I used to come home from night shift in the early 2000's and watch episodes of Bud Lindemann's show on speed before I went to bed.  In the day it was as good as it got, but today it's corny, and downright ridiculous - watch the brake test which is really just a test of the locked up polyglass tires. But the hardware is cool, and it's a great nostalgia fix.

I loved watching them throw some boat through a set of cones with the door handles scraping the pavement and Bud saying "rebound and control were good" or him talking about how great the special handling package on whatever car was while showing the thing with the front tires nearly folded in half pushing like a bulldozer.  Man that show was great!

Yup.

Of all the shows mentioned, I've only seen two. Autoweek, which I haven't seen since I had a full head of hair, and Top gear which I never liked. Top gear always looked to me like they were trying too hard to be cute and funny. It just seemed so forced and fake like the faux reality shows that came after

Spoolpigeon said:

Every car show ever that uses a 'Z' in place of an 'S' or a 'K' instead of a 'C'. 

My only regret is I have but one upvote to give for this comment. 

"I changed the letters so I can be different, just like everyone else." So lame.

In reply to jdogg :

Victory by design was amazing 

ddavidv said:

Ranger50 said:

How about this...

If you can make a better show pitch it to a network. They don't know car people so shows have to have all the fakeness and such.

Until then shut your pieholes. I can't stand how many wife kills husband or I've talked with someone overseas for years and now I'm meeting them to marry them shows on now, or similar including those stupid shiplap rocks E36 M3 shows on "home improvement".....

I'm happy these shows are on period. I watch them to keep them on tv to avoid watching any more cooking shows.

I'm going to kind of...disagree with you there.

"Networks" like Discovery, TLC, MAVtv and yes, even Motor Trend know there is money in car TV stuff. But they can't fathom that viewers would rather watch straight technical stuff than scripted dramedy with five minutes of actual wrenching. They will claim they need the fake dramedy to appeal to the more 'mainstream' viewers. This is why Graveyard Carz sucked so bad the first several seasons (and still fluctuates in and out of stupidity). Mark Worman wanted to make a straight restoration show but the network told him to come back with all the moron drama, because they wanted a car version of Orange County Choppers. That's what it took to get on the air. Eventually, he was able to shift the show to more technical stuff but still has to have 'bits' to keep the network at bay. 

The networks, of course, are morons. Because otherwise there would not be the success of all the YouTube channels that are strictly wrenching that have been wildly successful. They still cling to the belief they have to sell to the 'mainstream' viewer, which is probably not helped by the success of Top Gear/The Grand Tour. As much as I like the British 3 Stooges they haven't been a positive influence on real automotive programming.

Speed Channel was an enthusiast channel but never made money.  Everything since has been 'entertainment'.

This is why I subscribe to Motor Trend and studiously avoid the shows with excess fake drama.  If enough people did that, their stats will convince them that low drama shows sell, and they'll spend more money producing them.

In reply to Cooter :

Now that's  a bad azz Hemi!!!

GCrites80s said:

Did some band that knows nu-metal, the blues and shredder stuff go into the studio sometime in 1999 and cut the instrumental bits live in one big 8-hour session and create all the background music for every car show and video game made from that point on? Then these show and game production companies came along and cut it up into little bits for beds and menus?

And then they turn up the volume on that lame music when the project car's engine is started, so you can't hear how it sounds.

eastsideTim said:    This is why I subscribe to Motor Trend and studiously avoid the shows with excess fake drama.  If enough people did that, their stats will convince them that low drama shows sell, and they'll spend more money producing them.

QFT, man.  I absolutely loved my Motortrend membership and miss it dearly.  If they opened their subscription services back up to us international folk I'd re-subscribe tomorrow.

In reply to BradLTL :

Back when you had to find "alternative" ways to watch 5th gear my son and I ran into Tiff Needel at Mid Ohio, he was interviewing Lord Drayson.  I told him how much I liked 5th Gear but he must have had a plane to catch and kind of mumbled thanks and sped off in a golf cart. 

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

All it takes is a VPN.

In reply to Aaron_King :

I've had "mixed luck" at best with VPN services.  At worst, they work until I pay for a year subscription and then the sites I'm using them for get wise to the service and block them too (Netflix being the hardest nut to crack in that department).

Once we move into our new place and pay for the "super fast" interwebz, I'll probably give them another try.  But with our current service I've yet to find one that doesn't make things infuriatingly slow (we live at the edge of a small farming community in BFE)

Steve Magnante, of "Junkyard Gold" fame, let loose on Uncle Tony's live feed last night about this very subject. He said virtually none of the people at these networks know anything about cars or the people who like them.  He was told one of his shows was "too teachy" because he discussed actual facts about the cars. "Junkyard Gold" got canceled not because it wasn't popular but because management didn't understand it. 

YouTube is where the content is. 

In reply to ddavidv :

The irony of all things is, Steve still does(sorta) Junkyard Gold...on the YouTubes.

Rust Valley Restorers on Netflix is recent and already dated. They're doing the "small shop have to make money fast but we love cars so much we have to lose money on every transaction" drama thing that was pretty well milked about 10 years ago.

If I could get hired as a Netflix "car enthusiast entertainment consultant" there's a number of YouTube personalities that I think could make excellent shows if given a modest budget. Tyler Hoover immediately comes to mind, as does "budget Adam Sandler" Jason Cammisa.

It isn't just car shows; both Dave Chapelle and Cedric the Entertainer have touched on the fact that the network execs didn't understand the viewer.

Not to derail, but has "Metal Masters" been discussed anywhere? I am not a strong metal fabricator and am amazed by people who have these skills. I can't imagine how 10 straight hours of metal work would feel on my body.

Unique Whips

Yea, there was a lot of talent there and they could build some damn nice vehicles...

but building a shoe display in the trunk of a car for a MLB star. C'mon

I heard their shop went bankrupt last year. 

Appleseed said:

In reply to ddavidv :

The irony of all things is, Steve still does(sorta) Junkyard Gold...on the YouTubes.

Oh thank you so much for that!!!  I loved "Junkyard Gold".

Heckin subscribed!

As corny and semi-fake as it was, I really enjoyed the show "Bullrun" hosted by Bill Goldberg. It only lasted a few seasons IIRC. 

The OG Top Gear America with Tanner, Rutledge, and Adam was another one that was awesome and didn't get far. 

Hyperdrive on Netflix with Rutledge Wood was an interesting one.  

Autoweek gets a pass for me because they don't talk beyond what they know most of the time, and the retro reviews are great.

Trying to avoid the low hanging fruit from '90s and '00s TV, here's my hot take lol:

I liked Roadkill for the most part, until it kind of turned into "we got this crate engine and gearstar transmission, put it in this car, and it was fast!" and then of course went behind a paywall.

I love top gear specials - like I have no expectation for it to be as much about the cars specifically, and then it just becomes a show about guys doing silly stuff with cars and I like that. The actual episodes were hit or miss for me.

Doug Demuro had a good streak when he was doing more attainable stuff, but a lot of the hyper expensive stuff lost my interest and man, there are some gaping holes in his knowledge that a few minutes of research would have fixed at times. He also likes a lot of the gadget stuff and doesn't seem to have much of a mechanical background, so his perspective is kind of the opposite of mine.

Chris Harris on Cars was awesome; I always enjoyed his stuff probably because when he acted excited, he really seemed to be actually excited. Haven't seen him on the new top gear, though.

TheSmokingTire guy whose name I don't remember right now seems to generally continue to be good, and he has been around a while.

Harry of Harry's Garage has a great show that's been around a few years now and continues to be great.

Hoonigan's This vs. That show has been good since the beginning in my opinion. Their other stuff is hit or miss.

Trying to think if there are any others I've payed any real attention to, but I think that's most of it.

MrFancypants said:

If I could get hired as a Netflix "car enthusiast entertainment consultant" there's a number of YouTube personalities that I think could make excellent shows if given a modest budget. Tyler Hoover immediately comes to mind, as does "budget Adam Sandler" Jason Cammisa.

Hoover has a TV show called Car Issues.

In reply to stuart in mn :

I knew he had developed a show, but the last I heard of it from him was that it had been canceled and was on some weird network

In reply to MrFancypants :

I find Tyler Hoover to be incredibly annoying.  How that guy has made tons of money being a "car guy" on youtube and motor trend is beyond me