Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond left fuming after Top Gear is followed by German car documentary
The BBC2 motoring show's display of patriotism along The Mall was swiftly followed by Das Auto - a programme panning the British automobile industry
Susanna Lazarus
11:55 AM, 06 August 2013
Sunday's episode of Top Gear was a celebration of all things British, extolling the excellence of our nation's car manufacturers by lining Jaguars, Aston Martins, ice cream vans and much, much more in a display of patriotism along the Mall. So why did BBC2 choose to follow it with a documentary profiling what went wrong with Britain's post-war car industry and what the Germans did so right?
It's a question pondered by the Top Gear presenters following the BBC's decision to schedule one after the other, with Jeremy Clarkson taking to his Twitter account to question the choice of programming...
@JeremyClarkson
I am properly cross with BBC2. What on earth were they thinking of?
6:29 AM - 5 Aug 2013
@JeremyClarkson
We try our hardest to show British manufacturing and engineering is still astonishing. And then along comes BBC2...
6:33 AM - 5 Aug 2013
Meanwhile, a furious Richard Hammond fumed to The Sun: "We'd spent months planning this show, they must have known. It was a kick in the teeth."
Any viewers tuning in on Sunday evening would have noticed that as much as Dominic Sandbrook's Das Auto praised the successes of the German car industry, it also dedicated a good chunk of time to panning their British rivals. No wonder Clarkson and co are red in the face...
