Top Gear’s Greatest Behind The Scenes Moments Told By Script Editor Richard Porter
Going To War With Car Enthusiasts
It’s safe to say that Top Gear put more cars under the soil than on top. One specific model, the Marina, as destroyed by the Top Gear team, but fans of the car went mad when they found out.
“Unfortunately, the Marina lovers of Britain didn’t share this casual attitude to the destruction of their favourite car and wrote furious letters to the office,” Porter wrote. He continued:
Our response was utterly childish. We decided that if they were annoyed then the solution was to annoy them some more. Another Marina was bought, and then a piano was dropped on it. The Marinaists were incandescent with rage. So we did it again. And then again.
At some point during this very puerile attempt to annoy Morris people we got an email from someone complaining not about Marina destruction but about one of the pianos we’d dropped, saying it appeared to be quite a rare and interesting model. Perversely, we were quite mortified about this.
This is a great read, to be sure, and Mr. Porter is a very clever boy. 🙂