First two episodes have been awesome so far. They've taken their cinematography game up another step this series too.

that green holden looks menacing doing the dusty hillclimb
is the Kelowna episode gonna be airing in series 22 or they're saving that for the future?

:lol: just watched the first episode and Ed Sheeran is always such a classy and nice guy

Not a fan of the color on the Lambo though :/

How do the logistics of such productions work?

Do the BBC just buy the cars, drive the shit out of them, and then flip them?

Or are they leased from the manufacturer, and returned?

I ask because obviously they took a shitload of beatings...going sideways on a gravel road isn't the best thing to do to the paint of a +$100K car.

But it also looks like they cleaned them between segments...either that or it was filmed in bits and stitched lol

They keep most of them in a warehouse. Seriously. They've shown pictures before where they just have tons of Top Gear's past prop cars that they've improved/ruined.

Some of the cars they do keep (like the car boats, i-Eagle Thrusthammer, etc), but most of the expensive cars are borrowed from manufacturers. Some of the ones they beat up on are possibly pre-production units, but I'm sure they pay a ton of insurance premiums to take a Bentley on a gravel rally track. Not the first time they've rally'ed a Bently, as well.

Yeah I know they store the "project" cars, but the high end ones were the ones I was curious about.

Pre-production sounds quite likely.

Probably returned. The ones from Australia are probably too wrecked to sell but the cost a car is nothing to a manufacturer compared to the publicity of being on the world's most watched TV show.

Top Gear Series 22: Episode 3 trailer – Top Gear – BBC
 

Considering the value of some of those cars I wouldn't say they're too wrecked to sell, they'd need a hell of a detailing but I could see it still used as a dealer demo vehicle.

That said I'm pretty sure each mfr sets aside a couple early/pre production cars for testing by the media (magazines and shows like TG), so if anything they'd just give them to TG last.

This doesn't really answer your questions, but here's the aftermath of that Bentley:
www.http://thesupercarkids.com/what-happened-after-top-gear-left-australia/

Cool thanks for the link. Not surprised it needed a respray!

Is anyone else enjoying the regular season episodes a lot more than the specials?

Yes the specials are too phony (well the regular season is phony too, but not as blatant)

Meh ..Nissan, BMW and Bentley knew the demo cars are going to lose half the value once TG is done with them. Getting the cars on the most popular automotive show in the world is worth more than anything.

BBC balls so hard it's not even funny. They make the best non-fiction programming bar none.

I guess it helps that everyone in the country has to pay over $200 a year if they have a TV or a computer (Japan does something similar with NHK which I didn't know about until last year)

Cant wait to see the EP where they're here in BC!

i think thats the one where they bomb around in a hennessey velociraptor right?

Star Special Spoiler

Where do you watch the full episodes of season 22 (Stream/download)
I remember there was a site that I could watch it (fifthgear?)

here BBC iPlayer

ambulance episode was dreadfully boring.

There were some laugh out loud moments for me (James May is so british it's beyond hilarious) but yeah, kind of pointless, contrived, and overall boring

yeah, but ricciardo was impressive