Scirocco Central

The last programme in the current series of Top Gear airs this Sunday, 2 August, and will feature an entertaining, Top Gear style mini-documentary on how to make a car commercial.

Jeremy Clarkson and Top Gear Executive Producer, Andy Wilman, are long-standing admirers of Volkswagen advertising and the work of our agency DDB. Andy’s initial ingredients were the conflicting creativity and characters of Top Gear presenters, Jeremy Clarkson and James May. He then added the controlling influence of Jonathan Hill and Jeremy Craigon from DDB London plus the Volkswagen Scirocco.

Andy knew that his presenters would be really bad at making a car advertisement and that they would be surprised and frustrated by the rules with which they would need to comply. Jeremy Clarkson has already said privately that he really struggled with the challenge but had a lot of fun making the item and was disappointed to learn that Sunday’s Volkswagen item would be only 17 minutes in length.

As you will appreciate, BBC rules would not normally permit one of its programmes to make and screen a car commercial but Andy Wilman was successful in negotiating permission in this case due to the educational and entertainment content of the formula. We are hoping to see a classic piece of Top Gear entertainment that will be shown frequently around the world for years to come. Who knows, their ad may eventually be seen by more people than any official Volkswagen advertisement.

Here’s the official BBC Top Gear site preview:
“Jeremy and James, meanwhile, have been hard at work creating a memorable television advert for Volkswagen. Remember the Golf GTI ad with the squeaky earring? Or the singing dog? Well, it’s probably going to end up being nowhere near as good as those.”

BBC Top Gear TV
20:00 on BBC 2
Sunday 2 August 2009

This was sent to me by the salesman who i have ordered my car off, he says its an official news bulletin from the VW's desktop system.

whoo hoo!

Now, don't forget it's on Sideshow........

Well that was a bit disappointing! Don't think the scirocco came across well at all. I thought Top Gear rated the car but obviously not. They should at least have put the TSI around the track.

i'd buy one
(not diesel though, sorry diesel boys)

Yep i was really looking forward to that one and it was a real let down. Hardly anything about the car just jc and jm in yet another contrived and fairly ridiculous plot. Used to really enjoy the show but is it just me or is it getting more and more stupid (and a bit boring)? I did notice that they have the roc in the "sub zero" section on the cool wall over jc's shoulder. When did they rate that? Must have missed that one.

I thought it was excellent! The car looked really good and I agree completely with their (brief) verdict. It is a very well built car but the diesel lacks power - it was the ~130bhp one.

there you go biggles
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biggles wrote:YHardly anything about the car

sorry Biggles but it was never really supposed to be about the car

I thought it was fair enough, I got the impression that they like the car (space, finish, style etc.) it was just the engine that was the problem.

The 2.0 TSI without a remap is nothing to write home about so the oil burner must be as slow as a week in Jail.

Hahahahahaaaa
Man the scirocco part was hillarious

I loved this ep. was a shame the diesel gat a slating but what do you expect from them??? If I was overflowing with money I'd have the TSI but if I need something to do 300 miles round trip every few weekends then the diesel makes sense... I still can't wait for my TDI to show up.