While everyone and their brother continues to wait for the new series of “Top Gear” to begin, BBC America continues with Episode Three of “James May’s Cars for the People” this week. The three-episode series from the Top Gear presenter lays out the history of the supercar’s nemesis – the everyday automobile.
Episode Three goes straight to the “cars for the very wealthy people” jugular with an immediate focus on that affordable, bargain car – the 1965 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow – which May says cost a mere 6500 British pounds back in the day [that merely translates to $10, 456 American dollars which, in turn, translates into $80,000 of today’s American dollars – hardly meeting the criteria of a “car for the people” unless the people are all composed of wealthy corporate businessmen].
May then moves on to the 1964 Ford Mustang – much more relevant car for the people and retailing for approximately a fifth of the cost of a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow at the time – but then punts the effort by comparing it to a forgettable Mercury Capri in a lame Top Gear-style race emphasizing what everybody already knew – that the Mustang was faster in a straight line and the Capri was niftier around corners. Newsflash. Still, the most helpful bit of information for those who did not already know it – the Mustang was built on the same frame as the Ford Falcon.
What follows is a series of lamentable snippets that includes another Top Gear-style race between supposed sales representatives in a Chevrolet Cavalier and a Ford Sierra – which was known as the extremely poor Merkur in the USA. May then trots out the people’s car called the 1974 Lamborghini Countach followed by a brief shout-out to another poor car, the Ford Escort XR3, then the classic affordable people’s car – a Porsche 911 Turbo – before finally settling on having another mundane sales rep race between the Porsche and a Peugeot 205 [also not highly available in the USA].
After all that time-wasting, May finally gets back to the original “people’s car” point of the entire series with a brief focus on the three-wheel Reliant-made Bond Bug, a short snippet on the Mazda Miata MX-5 before ultimately declaring that the people’s car of the 21st century is the Volkswagen Golf [leaving us to assume the 20th century car to be the VW Beetle].