The Top Gear Test Track
Last night in the UK saw the start of the eleventh series of popular BBC2 car show Top Gear - so it’s time to finally visit the Top Gear studio and track!
Based at Dunsfold Park in Surrey, the two mile track was built on an old RAF airfield by Lotus engineers.
As seen from the opening credits, the large hanger by the track is the studio, although the large Top Gear logo isn’t there any more (or perhaps this picture was taken before filming). Just next to the studio, you can see the production office of Top Gear, which is, according to the makers, just a portakabin!
A member at Google Earth Community has posted an overlay of the track, so you can get an aerial overview of Gambon and the follow-through, with the Hammerhead sitting at the end of the runway. The lack of visible tyre marks suggests that the images was captured before the ‘Power Lap’ and ‘Star in a Reasonably Priced Car’ features began.
You can find out more about Top Gear and Dunsfold Park at Wikipedia. Sightseeing car fans in the UK can watch the most recent Top Gear again at BBC’s iPlayer.
Thanks to Scott Blair, Shane Ferguson, Justin Flavin, Stu Gowdy, Lee, Patrick, Scott and Matt Wix.
The lack of the 747 is disappointing too =[
The photos that GE uses for Dunsfold Park were taken in 2001 but Top Gear was only re-launched (in it’s current format) and started using Dunsfold in 2002. Hence no skid marks, marker lines etc.
Love the blog but thought I’d point out that Top Gear has been going much longer than 11 years. It started way back in 1977 and has been running in its current format for about 6 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear_%28original_format%29
Looks like a harrier on the taxi-way.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Also is it me or does it look like a golf course here??
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Looks like sand traps and greens.
And this is an odd layout of trees…
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
@Jim: Glad you love the site
The previous version of the show was completely different, so it’s fair to call the current series of Top Gear series 11 (fifth gear was more of a continuation of the previous show).
I like this Test Track better:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
I may be wrong but isnt the logo superimposed onto the hangar by computer jiggery pokery?
Thank you, thank you for reminding us, people from outside the UK, that we cannot see Top Gear, not even by iPlayer. Please rub it in once more…
Top Gear outside the UK? Here in Italy we get it on two different Sky channels - sometimes three episodes in a row - even though perhaps 2 years old…
2 years old?
And you have to pay for that?
Um, we can get it via torrent or YouTube quite easily.
As the man that runs the site I can correct a few things here.
The logo is created by computer jiggery-pokery but it is not on the studio itself. That building used to be the production hangar for the Harrier but is far too large for the studio. The studio is in fact the western half of the hangar furhter to the west and the portakabin or ‘L’ shaped building to the west again is the production office.
The GE photo was taken in about 1999 or 2000. BAe closed the site at the end of 2000 so the number of people would no doubt have been winding down during the last year. As you can see there are a lot of cars on site and at its height there were 1350 people working here.
The 747 came in June 2005 and we use it for filming. You may know that it ’starred’ in Casino Royale when Dunsfold Park beacme Miami airport!
Hope that helps
The Top Gear logo up on the roof as seen in the opening credits a superimposed computer image. If you do a slo-mo, you’ll see the logo magically appear from nowhere just before the camera pans up on the roof.