BBC’s ‘Top Gear’ car show races through Israel

The hosts were seen entering Israel from Jordan earlier this week in a a Mazda Miata driven by Clarkson that had a hookah affixed to it.

Top Gear (photo credit: BBC)
Top Gear
(photo credit: BBC)
British car show Top Gear is filming an episode in Israel this week, and hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are sure to learn a little about driving in a country where commuting is a blood-sport and road signs confound at breakneck speed.
The hosts were seen entering Israel from Jordan earlier this week in a pair of sand and dirt-battered roadsters, including a Mazda Miata driven by Clarkson that had a hookah affixed to its drivers’ side door.
The well-worn roadsters look more than capable of handling an encounter with a Tel Aviv cab driver or stone-throwing Silwan youth, and whether or not the Top Gear hosts plan to affix Breslav stickers or the likeness of Gilad Schalit to the roadsters remains to be seen.
Though details of the visit are not clear, Channel 2 reported that the Top Gear crew was seen filming in Nazareth, before tearing through the hills chased by paparazzi to Highway 6, where they high-tailed it south toward Jerusalem.
The visit to Israel during a late October heat wave is to film an episode for the show’s coming season. The show has hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide, many of whom will get their first view of Israel as the tourism ministry never intended it: through a bug-spattered windshield flying down an open Israeli highway.