Former Autocar road test editor Chris Harris has been confirmed as a presenter on the revamped version of Top Gear.
Harris will join Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc, Sabine Scmitz, Eddie Jordan and Rory Reid on the new-lookshow, and who take over the show's mantle from Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. The new series of Top Gear begins in May.
Harris began his career in motoring journalism at Autocar, and quickly rose to become road test editor. He left Autocar in 2008, and has spent time writing for other motoring titles as well as presenting motoring videos on YouTube, both for the /DRIVE channel and for his own series, Chris Harris on Cars. Here we look back at Harris's early years on Autocar.
Read Steve Cropley's blog - Why Harris is a perfect fit for Top Gear
Chris Harris drives the Bugatti Veyron
Harris is faced with a simple choice in Germany - spend an evening with great food, drink and company in a luxurious chateux, or spend an hour on German autobahns with the 987bhp Bugatti Veyron to see how fast it can go. Simple choice, right?
Chris Harris drives the Ferrari F430 Scuderia
Before his famous falling out with Ferrari in 2011, which resulted in Harris being banned from officially reviewing Ferrari vehicles until 2013, we sent him to the firm's Fiorano test track to sample the 503bhp Ferrari F430 Scuderia.
Bugatti Veyron versus Audi R8, Aston Martin DB9, Porsche 911 GT3 RS and Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera - the group test
We reunited Harris and Sutcliffe to conduct a long-awaited group test between the Bugatti Veyron and some of its fastest rials - in such illustrious company, could the Veyron still come out on top?
Nissan GT-R versus Porsche 911 and BMW M3
Back in 2008, Nissan shocked the performance car world with the launch of the Nissan GT-R. With its new sports car winning group tests across the board, we sent Harris to find out just how good this new Nissan was, by pitting it against the Porsche 911 and BMW M3.
Porsche 997 GT2 versus Corvette Z06
At around £131,000, the 997 series 911 GT2 was, at the time, the most expensive (and fastest) Porsche 911 ever built. The Chevrolet Corvette Z06 meanwhile, claimed to offer similar thrills for half the price. Harris set course for Bruntingthorpe airfield to decide which was best.
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Well, to be honest.........
Eddie Jordan should take his
Sabine will be great, we have seen her on TG before and she can talk and drive like a bat out of hell, she has pedigree as the first Lady WTCC driver, and she is Mrs Nurburgring, the other two... WHO ????? one seems to have a jouno background and can drive a bit, that's good, and then we have the last one that was supposed to be from the auditions, what a joke that was, they might as well have just employed him in the first place and not wasted time looking at the Vids, if they did..
TG of old has gone, well on the BBC, if they go too technical it will fail, the people want fun, fast cars, banter and laughs, after all it became the worlds biggest show based on all that, to vastly change it, would be cutting the BBC's cash cow, and would only prove that Amazon did the right thing....
TG Required a reboot.
Symanski wrote: Top Gear
There were some tedious bits yes, but look at some of the monumental feature pieces! Take the pride of Britain one that culminated in the huge line up of British products in the drive to Bucks Palace, the narrative was superb, it should be required viewing on the National Curriculum!
The Apprentice wrote:
Totally agree, it had become a bit repetitive and sometimes irritating but that pride of Britain feature was without doubt one of their finest, loved it.
TG at its best.
That was Top Gear at its best, without doubt. Why? Because it showed excellence. Excellence of what we can do in Britain, a worthwhile reminder of how we can be great. Alas, that standard of feature in Top Gear was getting rarer and rarer. For example, that feature was in series 20, we just had 22. In that time, how few episodes had new cars? I'd say less than half, and not forgetting that other than the Australian adventure, those new cars would only be a small feature in the show.