The Car Show Fail

I am a classic car enthusiast.

I wish I could explain what all that sentence entails for me, for my life. The truth is I have shaped my life around my lust. I have been physically and emotionally involved with old cars since before I can actually remember, thanks to my dad, who still is the best mechanic I have ever met.

I can't remember where most of my friends in high school lived, let alone their names, but I can tell you exactly what the interior of a 1969 Chevrolet Pick-up smells like, even though I haven't spent time in one since 1995.

I listened to Adam Carolla on Love Line every night when I was 18 or 19, working night shift at a Chevron gas station. I can remember laughing until I had tears in my eyes at the ridiculous, juvenile horseplay on the show. The show was innuendo and fart jokes and silliness, and I understood it.

I probably watch significantly less TV than most Americans my age, largely because I don't own a TV. My car hasn't had radio in about 8 years, so I haven't really followed Adam Carolla's career since those nights.

I was pretty pumped when I saw a car show hosted by Adam Carolla. I'm a long time fan of Top Gear UK, and I always thought there was no way a car show like Top Gear could be done in the US.

Top Gear is a show in which three average British car enthusiasts discuss, drive, and do ridiculous challenges, stunts, and driving escapades in a variety of cars, ranging from budget to super-exotic. What makes the show brilliant is the sheer British-ness of it. To take away that essence would be like a Jaguar made by Ford. It might look the part, but you know that underneath, it's just a Taurus.

Indeed, The Car Show is overly flashy, ashamedly cheap, and annoyingly American, just like the Ford-produced Jaguar. The intro, the hosts, the music... it's all just too much. The humor, funny when I was 19, isn't anymore. The stunts? Race around some $500 cars for 24 hours. Not that funny. Not that much fun to do, either. I drove a $500 car for a year and a half myself.

I kept hoping the show would get better. I really wanted it too, but it never did. Americans, it seems, aren't funny when it comes to cars. Perhaps we become too invested in our cars. I think they matter too much to us sometimes.

I should be the target audience for this show. Not only do I have a huge interest in the subject matter, I am familiar with the hosts. This show should have been like starting a newly rebuilt engine for the first time for me. Instead, it bored me. It was too scripted. Carolla looked old and sounded crotchety. The other hosts were lackluster at best and just as annoying as Carolla at times.

I don't know if anything could have saved this show for me. A key component of this type of show is having compelling cars, which they did not. In my mind, the first show of the first season should have had really spectacular cars. Don't get me wrong, a Porsche GT3 RS is a hot car, and a Rolls-Royce Ghost is a great touring car, they just have no sizzle. Maybe drag racing Jay Leno's tank-powered roadster instead of the Porsche. Or setting off on a road trip in a 1909 Peerless. 

After I watched The Car Show, I put an old episode of Top Gear on. Top Gear is a really well made car enthusiast show and deserves to be the benchmark all other car shows are tested against. The Car Show falls short by a mile.