Top Gear heads to Scotland for the first time

TOP GEAR is set to be filmed in Scotland for the first time ever in the new year in the country’s newest and largest entertainment venue.
The Top Gear team will appear at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow in the new year. Picture: ComplimentaryThe Top Gear team will appear at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow in the new year. Picture: Complimentary
The Top Gear team will appear at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow in the new year. Picture: Complimentary

The Hydro will host three Top Gear Live shows to take place in January 2014. Scottish motoring fans will see Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May and The Stig up close for the first time.

The 90-minute shows have been announced for the weekend of 18-19 January, with tickets going on sale from 9am this Friday.

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One of the shows will feature a hydrogen-powered Honda Clarity, which May will test drive.

Clarkson admitted he has “absolutely no idea” what the team will be getting up to on its Scottish jaunt but pledged “it will be something very special”.

“What we can promise is lots of gigantic explosions, some very scary stunts plus a magnificent line-up of incredibly expensive supercars… not to mention all the usual cock-ups, crashes and arguments. Who knows, you might even see The Stig in a kilt,” he added.

The live incarnation of the hugely successful BBC 2 show has seen Top Gear Live embark on a world tour over the past 12 months, taking in Moscow, Sydney, Amsterdam, Antwerp and Durban before a spectacular finale in Poland on 21 September to a sell-out crowd in excess of 50,000 in Warsaw’s National Stadium.

Of the Hydro, Clarkson remarked that the venue is “the perfect setting for our kind of arcane humour and barbaric acts” given that its design was apparently inspired by ancient Roman and Greek amphitheatres.

“I think some epic chariot racing should be on the cards,” he added.

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The SSE Hydro has a seating capacity of 12,000, though its capacity will be reduced to 8,000 seats for the shows to give additional stage space needed for the cars.

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