Host of Fifth gear, Tiff Needle, announced over Twitter on Sunday that the show was canceled after being on air for 14 years. Tiff states in one of his Tweets, “After an unbroken run of 29 years presenting either Top Gear or Fifth Gear it feels weird not to have any filming dates in my diary!”
Fifth gear was an automotive show that aired on the BBC alongside the internationally popular show, Top Gear. The show consisted of hosts belonging to the original Top Gear cast pre-2002 before the show was cancelled and then revamped with James May, Jeremy Clarkson, and Richard Hammond.
While never being quite as popular as Top Gear, the show still had its own cult following. This was mainly due to the fact that all the hosts of Fifth gear were previously professional racing drivers. The show capitalized on this and showcased precision driving skill rather than attempting to keep up with the shenanigans of the Top Gear trio.
Sadly it seems this was not enough, the show was ultimately canceled due to a lack of funding which was implied in one of Needles’s Tweets, “No!! Fifth Gear is finding it hard to get re-commissioned…”
With all the recent news of large automotive shows kicking the bucket, it has a lot of car fans worried if there will ever be a place for shows like these on TV ever again. Until the Grand Tour is released, in the meantime car fans can get their fix with numerous quality channels on YouTube at the very least.
