BBC motoring show Top Gear was one of the best-known TV programmes in the world, thanks to audacious road trips and massive stunts. Fans of the show will now be able to enjoy three new pieces of content, all filmed in 360-degrees, putting them in the driver’s seat for some outlandish stunts.
This is Top Gear doing what it does best, taking cars and doing some insane stunts, just this time you’re the driver. Over on the Top Gear YouTube channel, you’ll find the first of three 360 films covering several death-defying stunts. To start things off, the first film treats the viewer like one of the cast, relaxing in a trailer. A member of the Top Gear production team then escorts them to a buggy which drives around the stunt they’re about to face.
For the first stunt, the viewer is strapping themselves into a petrol tanker and jumping a petrol station (normal everyday stuff). Naturally, this being Top Gear things don’t go as smoothly as possible.
The next two 360 films will be released episodically, with the second jumping over a mini-music festival in an old, underpowered campervan, while the third film sees old Star in a Reasonably Priced Car motor, the Kia C’eed, taking on a jump over a supermarket carpark into the last parking space. The series will conclude with a behind-the-scenes video revealing how the films were made.
“We wanted to create entertaining content for our YouTube channel that took fans behind the scenes of a Top Gear stunt. And by producing this content in 360 we were able to ‘virtually’ put viewers right there in the driving seat of three enormously inappropriate stunt vehicles, something we’ve never done before. The results, as you will see, are smashing!,” says Duncan Gray, Commercial Director, Top Gear in a statement.
Created by Top Gear in collaboration with REWIND (Curfew: Join the Race, Ghost in the Shell VR) you can check out the video below or watch with a compatible headset like Oculus Quest using the YouTube VR app. As more of the films are released VRFocus will keep you updated on their release.