Tag: neil

Speed details new shows with Adam Carolla and Dan Neil

Filed under: Etc.

Adam CarollaThe Speed Channel is approaching the 15th anniversary of its original air date and apparently its going to get much more aggressive with its content in the coming years. Right now, Speed has 20 new shows in development and six of those are ready to show up in your DVR in 2011.

We know that Adam Carolla is working on a show that would be an automotive version of The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Other items in the works include a series of specials with Jay Leno, a reality series based on Gran Turismo 5 (produced in cooperation with Sony and Nissan) and a Gymkhana program to be helmed by The Fast and the Furious Producer/DIrector Adam Cohen.

Those represent part of the growing projects currently under development. These six new shows are ready to by slotted into the lineup (titles subject to change):

–Car Warriors: Think Joes vs Pros but for car construction. A team of average folks square off against all-star builders and their work will be judged by George Barris, Jimmy Shine and Mad Mike Martin.

–American Truckers: Rob Mariani talks about iconic rigs, amazing routes and unique cargo tales. Kind of a niche audience here but the “iconic rigs” could be interesting.

–Car Science: The producers of Sports Science and Fight Science have turned their attention to automobiles.

–Speedmakers: Surprisingly not a Breaking Bad rip-off, but an examination of anything that makes speed possible. The show will examine the Daytona International Speedway, go behind the scenes at Aston Martin and will generally focus on engineering feats designed to maximize speed.

–Ticket to Ride with Dan Neil: Pulitzer-prize winner Dan Neil turns his column into a television show. If Speed lets him handle the writing, this one could prove quite interesting.

–The 10: This one is for the NASCAR fans. The 10 will highlight the best that NASCAR has served up over the years with topics such as Most Bizarre Finishes, All-Time Races, Throw-downs and Closest Calls.

[Source: Speed]

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Speed details new shows with Adam Carolla and Dan Neil originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Report: Adam Carolla, Dan Neil to host Speed Channel pilot

Filed under: Etc., Celebrities

Adam CarollaTop Gear USA just not doing it for you? Well, here’s some potentially good news: Speed Channel has reportedly inked a deal with Mandt Bros. Productions to pilot a new automotive television series (currently untitled) hosted by Adam Carolla, Pulitzer-winning journalist Dan Neil, former NBA ‘baller John Salley and Matt Farah from The Smoking Tire.

Consider our interest piqued by the cast alone. We’ve seen Carolla do his thing – including witnessing the taping of the un-aired pilot for the defunct NBC Top Gear project, which has nothing to do with the current iteration on History – and he definitely knows and loves cars.

Moving past the headline-generating Adam Carolla, we’ve long been fans of Dan Neil, and John Salley was rather good on The Best Damn Sports Show Period. Finally, Farah has carved out a nice niche and has garnered a fan base of his own on The Smoking Tire.

As far as the show’s format goes, it sounds similar to the Top Gear model with “news and conversation centered around cars, as well as pre-recorded features shot on the road.” It could be interesting, but we’ll take our usual wait-and-see approach…

[Source: Variety]

Report: Adam Carolla, Dan Neil to host Speed Channel pilot originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unlikely Ire: Dan Neil excoriates 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder

Filed under: Convertible, Performance, Porsche, Design/Style

2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder – Click above for high-res image gallery

When we look at the 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder rap sheet, it’s hard not go get a bit excited. It looks seriously terrific, it weighs but 2,811 pounds, and it packs 320 mid-mounted ponies. Good stuff. When we spent some time behind the wheel of the Spyder, we fell more than deeply in love with this, the purest of Boxsters. If only automotive super-journo Dan Neil agreed.

Neil’s review of the Boxster Spyder in The Wall Street Journal falls somewhere short of glowing prose – in fact, it’s about 500 miles short of glowing and a mere six inches past poor. The Pulitzer prize-winning author pans the Spyder’s top as beyond difficult (we called it “trick”). Okay, so a convertible top that was designed to save 46 pounds is probably going to shape up as less than ideal (Neil: “Find me the guy who designed the canvas top. Bring me his head on a platter”), but if Neil thinks this top is Erector Set hell, he should get his hands on a Lamborghini Murcielago Roadster.

Anything else wrong here? Well, there’s the power for starters. Neil feels the Spyder’s 320 horses are hamstrung by 273 pound-feet of torque that can only be best accessed when pushing the flat-six hard. And then there is the six-speed manual transmission, which Neil feels is inferior in every way to the PDK dual-clutch tranny (“Those purists out there still clinging to your six-speed manuals, please go home. Your black-and-white TV is on the fritz.”).

So… is the Boxster Spyder God’s gift to lightweight roasters or is it a reason to fire the engineers who designed this Porsche’s lightweight top? We know Dan – he’s a swell guy and one hell of a writer, but even though we’re decidedly short on Pulitzers, we can’t help but think that to slate the Spyder for not being a great everyday car is to miss its point altogether. Factory lightweight specials like this one are always a bit silly for street use, always ask for more concessions of their drivers, and, if they’re German, they always cost a bunch more, too. And yet… we’d still rock the top Boxster any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

Oh, and we’re just fine with the three-pedal setup, thanks – like seemingly every dual clutch gearbox, the PDK still has lousy low-speed drivability – and you can call us hopeless romantics, but when it’s not about chalking up lap times, we still love to row our own gears.

Head over to the WSJ to read Neil’s scathing review for yourself.

Gallery: First Drive: 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder

Photos by Michael Harley / Copyright (C)2010 Weblogs, Inc.

[Source: The Wall Street Journal – sub. req.]

Unlikely Ire: Dan Neil excoriates 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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