Now I’m not sure if doing something only twice can count as a tradition, but reviewing the series finale of Top Gear is something I’d love to count as one. In January I reviewed the series 14 finale, and now the beginning of August brings us the end of this series. Spanning only 6 episodes though, this series is the shortest in Top Gear history, which can be mainly attributed to the huge cost per episode. Destroying cars for shots that total less than a minute of screen time and traveling across Europe to film a 20 minute segment were the absolute opposites of cost efficiency. This series flew by much too quickly, but each episode was much more epic and grand in scale than the last, and therefore, much more memorable. This last episode was as exciting as any other in series 15, but unlike the rest it was also the most sincere.

Before they got to all of that they tried out one of the most exciting cars of the season, the successor to the Ferrari F430 – the 458. The car itself took a little while to grow on me, but I do think it’s a much better looking car then the 430. On top of it’s beauty, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Jeremy so clearly impressed with any car he’s driven. It absolutely destroys the 430 in every aspect, from a drag race to on the test track. In fact, it was only .1 seconds slower than a Ferrari Enzo which is a much more expensive car. After the segment Jeremy said the F430 was the “stupid man’s Ferarri” and as much as I love that car, the 458 really embarrassed it.

The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car was one of the few people who could of done a proper job following Tom Cruise, The Fly himself: Jeff Goldblum. Which wouldn’t have been too exciting of a segment, if not for the fact that he had no idea how to drive a manual car. At first they managed to find him an automatic version, until he broke that and had no other choice. And then, even after being tutored by the Stig, managed never to shift it out of 3rd gear once he was in it. Even though half of the lap was spent hitting the rev limiter, he still managed to post a time that wasn’t last place.

The main segment was a usual Top Gear challenge; the presenters are given X amount of money and have to buy a car that fits under the specified category. The category in question was one that had tremendous meaning to all three of them: British Sports Cars. A Jensen-Healey, a Lotus and a TVR were chosen by Jeremy, Richard and James respectively. The unique aspect of this challenge mostly being is how much the actual challenge ended up taking a backseat. With the guys traveling to the now shut-down factories of their car manufacturers, it became more of a love letter to British motoring than a battle of who picked the best car. The segment is filled with a lot of melancholy, especially while revisiting what used to be glorious race car factories. It’s not so much of a fun piece as it is one of reflection and remembrance. And even though Top Gear is at its finest in terms of pure entertainment, they proved once again why they put on the best motoring show on the planet.