History’s “Top Gear” is coming back for a second season this month, beginning July 24. To start the season off right, they’ve created a brilliant promo that manages to combine the kind of classic car droolery you’d expect from a car show with an homage to ’70s flicks and a spot-on sendup of the hosts’ various on-screen personas.
According to Krista Liney, VP of on-air marketing at History, the network wanted “to pay homage to the action films of the 70’s, which paired a bigger than life character with a car with an equally big personality (like “Smokey and the Bandit”)…These films often blended humor with amazing car stunts the same way that ‘Top Gear’ does.”
As an added bonus, “the guys loved being filmed like action heroes with their own ‘specialty,’ ” she says.
With that in mind, Liney says, that race car driver Tanner Foust got a “Sean Connery, James Bond type of flair, the kind of guy who takes driving seriously and is always in control.” Meanwhile, expert Rutledge Wood was “a mix between John Travolta in ‘Grease’ and ‘The Dukes of Hazzard.’ ” As for comic (and accidental car wrecker) Adam Ferrara, well, “there is no better comparison for Adam than Burt Reynolds…in every Burt Reynolds movie,” she says.