User:DBD/Archived/The Cool Wall

The Cool Wall was a recurring segment on the BBC Two motoring programme Top Gear, in which Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond decide which cars are 'cool', and which aren't, by placing photographs of them onto various sections of a large board. The categories are Sub Zero, Cool, Uncool, Seriously Uncool and a special DB9 Fridge. A vehicle's placement has nothing to do with how good or bad a car it is.

The Cool Wall was put on indefinite hiatus after Series 10 began, as a result of the fire at Top Gear's warehouse, which destroyed a lot of the props used in the programme. The remains of the Wall are visible in the studio during the programme.

History
The Cool Wall was introduced in the sixth episode of Series 1 as an idea of Jeremy Clarkson. It was emphasised that a car's placement had nothing to do with how it looks or drives, just how cool it is. The first cars shown to illustrate the unpredictability of the board were the Hyundai Coupe and Honda Civic Type R, which were considered "really good" cars but "uncool"; conversely the Audi A2 was considered a "dreadful" car but "cool".

A running theme for some time rested on the extent to which the presenters believed each car would impress English actress Kristin Scott Thomas. More recently, BBC newsreader Fiona Bruce has replaced Scott Thomas as their notional judge: Kristin Scott Thomas owns a Honda Civic, deemed uncool, preferred a red Bentley Continental GT over the Aston Martin DB9, described a Lamborghini Gallardo convertible as "pathetic" and drives a G-Wiz when in London.

The Cool Wall is also the basis for some jokes, such as the Aston Martin DB9 which was "too cool for the whole wall" and put in a little fridge called the DB9 Section. The BMW 3 Series (E90) was dismissed as ugly and just a "lump of car", so the presenters decided they couldn't be bothered to put it on the wall at all.

The Cool Wall was shown to have been "one of the main casualties" of the Top Gear warehouse fire (jokingly rumoured by Clarkson to have been started by Fifth Gear, a rival motoring programme) in the first episode of series 10, and as a result, has been put on hiatus indefinitely.

Rules and Tactics
There are some rules to the Cool Wall, although all seem to be flexible:
 * Kristin Scott Thomas, Jeremy's favourite actress, is sometimes used as a standard of reference for "good taste", so Jeremy will rate a car's coolness based mostly on what he thinks Kristin Scott Thomas's level of distaste for it would be. When she was the "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car" she proceeded to rubbish most of the decisions Clarkson had made over the past years of the Cool Wall. The new yard stick is Fiona Bruce as of the first episode of season six, for reasons, see above.
 * Motorcycles are not allowed in, as demonstrated on 18 February 2007 when Richard Hammond, a lifelong fan of bikes, added a picture of a Ducati 1098 to the cool section. Jeremy Clarkson responded by using a chainsaw to remove not only the picture, but also the section of wall where it had been.
 * Supercars are automatically uncool or seriously uncool, as there are few cool people who can actually afford them. An exception is the Koenigsegg CCX which is cool on account of its scariness. Two other supercars, the Bugatti Veyron and the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren are also classed as cool (both of which have been driven by Clarkson in races against other forms of transport).
 * Diesel-powered cars are never cool as, regardless of how good they are, their only purpose is to save money.
 * Cars currently owned by any of the Top Gear presenters aren't cool. This applies for uncool celebrities and footballers, as well.
 * Small European cars (particularly small French cars) are generally cool.
 * People carriers (Vans) are never cool, because they're not cars people want to have; they're cars people need to have. Jeremy Clarkson has always described them as for "people who have given up". An exception here was the Renault Espace
 * Alfa Romeos are automatically cool, despite being outperformed by other cars (see below for more).
 * Everything with a Škoda badge on it is considered to be seriously uncool or uncool; the picture of the Škoda Fabia represents all Škodas, and is seriously uncool.
 * Hybrids are seriously uncool; the Toyota Prius was hanging off the end, but was updated to cool in a later episode due to the fact that it will seem an attractive prospect to environmentalist women to see a man "caring for the environment".
 * German Cars, particularly BMWs and Mercedes, are always uncool. When Clarkson tried to put the BMW M6 in the sub zero section, there was a fight when Hammond said that "you couldn't put a BMW as cool". On another episode, Clarkson and Hammond both agreed that the E90 3 Series was just "15 feet of some car," and, for the first time ever, "can't be bothered" to be placed on the Cool Wall.
 * As of 18 February 2007, SUVs are no longer cool, as Jeremy has moved all of the SUVs on the board down to the Seriously UNcool section. Jeremy also claimed he was going to buy a Range Rover to celebrate this motion (see above).
 * The Aston Martin DB9 was described as beyond Subzero and was in fact given its own section on the end called the "DB9 section", which was literally a freezer.
 * James May's opinion is always wrong.