Art of Gears
Fansided

Why I don’t watch car TV

By Andrew Hulse

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 29: Phil Taylor looks through the TV camera during his Quarter Final Match against Gary Anderson during the 2018 William Hill PDC World Darts Championships on Day Thirteen at Alexandra Palace on December 29, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 29: Phil Taylor looks through the TV camera during his Quarter Final Match against Gary Anderson during the 2018 William Hill PDC World Darts Championships on Day Thirteen at Alexandra Palace on December 29, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images) /
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SPEED Network was my first introduction to cars as a kid.  I used to watch World Rally Cross on SPEED and eventually started to catch some of the surrounding shows.  I was sad when SPEED turned to Fox Sports 1 here in the US, but now I just won’t watch automotive TV.

While I can attribute my automotive passion to car shows on TV, things like Barrett Jackson and Pimp My Ride were almost always playing on my set when I was a teen and even through college.

I still like to watch racing and make sure to catch every F1 race and if any other series is on, I will stop channel surfing and watch.  Unless its NASCAR, my wife doesn’t like to watch NASCAR.  She is a Baseball person so we generally compromise and watch Baseball.

The new Netflix show got me thinking.

As soon as people in my friend group started to hear about “Fastest Car” on Netflix, they started tagging me in the promos and asking if I was going to watch it.  The answer was a fairly resounding “no” and not because I think it will be bad.

https://twitter.com/FastestCar/status/982275528395599873

It did get me thinking though, why don’t I watch any automotive TV shows.  I didn’t watch anything on Velocity Network before cord cutting, I don’t watch Grand Tour save for small clips that people send me.  None of it interests me at all.

I think this can be attributed to everything (for the most part) being either directed at one single type of car or is a cheesy scripted reality type show.

Maybe if there were shows catering to different things.

Most of the repair shows I have ever seen are either geared towards muscle cars or trucks, neither of which interest me.  I did like the restoration part on Wheeler Dealers, but the rest falls into that cheesy scripted category.  Ed China has started his own show that looks pretty alright, I may give that a shot.

This all plays into what American consumers are looking for, muscle cars and trucks are the primary vehicles being worked on in garages of these channels target market here in the US.  There is a distinct lack of other segments of automotive culture.  I would like to see some more things covering culture and not just repairs.

Next: Volvo Polestar One Pricing Details Emerge,Almost As Much As A 911 Turbo!

I have now dropped cable and sometimes catch the new Top Gear and check in to see what they are doing, however, it is never enough to capture my attention to make me come back for more episodes.  The wife and I  will watch if there is no baseball on.

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