Rich Hall's Continental Drifters

Rich Hall:
Do you know why there's never been a decent British road film? I'll tell you why, cos there's nothing remotely exhilarating about having to eat a rancid chicken salad sandwich from a BP station at the Bolton West services on the M61, that's why. There's nothing romantic about having an Eddie Stobart truck with the name of some mail order bride stenciled onto the front grille trying to ram itself up your ass at 80mph. Nothing! Have you ever been to a Happy Eater? No one's happy! In America, the automobile evokes individualism. It's a manifestation of the pioneer spirit. In Britain, it's a source of frustration and defeat. What the point of owning a fast, expensive car when there's nowhere to drive it? There's a reason that Top Gear is so disgustingly popular in Britain, it's grown men watching other grown men do what they'll never get to do themselves, you know, road porn. They should make a British road film. It'd be two guys stuck in an eight mile tailback waiting for roadworks to end. You won't even need dialogue, it'll just sound like this:

[sounds of car horns start playing]

Rich Hall:
[riding in the back of an open-top car] This is a 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass. 380 long block. It's called a muscle car. Now, Jeremy Clarkson, your ill-informed and overhyped God of all things automotive and British, will tell you that muscle cars are gutless, that they can't handle the curves, that they have no finesse and no style. He'll tell you that a GTO or a Cutlass can't compare to a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. What he doesn't bother to tell you is that muscle cars were made for young, working American men who put in a bit of overtime so they could have one decent thing in their life. A Ferrari is for a guy with too much money, a mid-life crisis and a combover. Comparing a muscle car to a Ferrari is like comparing Jeremy Clarkson to a real television host. If this car was a woman, it'd be Elizabeth Taylor. If Jeremy Clarkson were a woman, I wouldn't be a Goddamn bit surprised.