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Chris Evans quits Top Gear amidst tumbling ratings

4 July, 2016

You remember Jeremy Clarkson’s fire and brimstone departure from BBC, and Top Gear, last year? Well, this is not about that, but it does concern the show formerly known as Top Gear, which now seems to be known as ‘New Top Gear’ among fans. You see, while Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond went their own way to present their new show, The Grand Tour, BBC forged ahead with Top Gear, featuring an all-new cast of presenters.

As quoted on TopGear.com, “Race driver Sabine Schmitz, YouTube star Chris Harris, F1 pundit Eddie Jordan, and motoring journalist Rory Reid will join Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc and of course, The Stig” as the updated cast for ‘new’ Top Gear, although this soon drew the ire of fans.

While much criticism can be attributed to long-standing fans of the show being unhappy with the fact that the big three — Jeremy, James, and Richard — are long gone, there was another popular grievance with a lot more direction. Chris Evans, according to the internet, was simply not doing it.

Weeks of public criticism, and rumours of both his being difficult to work with, and co-presenter Matt LeBlanc threatening to quit, all served to put Evans’ neck on the chopping block. But it was the plummeting ratings that acted as the final nail in the coffin. Opening with 4.4 million viewers, Top Gear’s audience fell to 2.34 million by episode four, and last Sunday’s dropped to an unprecedented low of 1.9 million.

It was these falling ratings that finally culminated in Chris Evans’ departure from the programme. This was confirmed via an online message Chris posted on his Twitter account, which read “Stepping down from Top Gear. Gave it my best shot but sometimes that’s not enough. The team are beyond brilliant, I wish them all the best.” The BBC has confirmed that they will not be seeking a replacement.

Design accord

28 March, 2025

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

21 March, 2025

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.