Top 10 Automotive TV series/ documentaries on Amazon and Netflix

Over the past few years, we have seen a rise of streaming services such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, however recently these services have invested buckets of money to produce their own content.  With huge budgets and a huge captive audience, it is no surprise that the content they are producing is quickly becoming a hit with their viewers. When Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May were approached by Amazon to produce their new automotive show it set off a tidal wave for other streaming services to find their foothold within the automotive entertainment market.

Cars have fascinated and caught our eyes for the past hundred years, but there are a few of us out there who live and breathe cars. We put pin-up pictures of the latest models on their walls; some of us keep a journal, and some just like to watch fantastic cars being raced around iconic tracks around the world. If you’re looking for some automotive entertainment while stuck inside? We’ve got you covered, below is the list of our Top 10 car shows from Netflix and Amazon Prime. Have you seen any of these series? What are your thoughts?

1.Formula 1: Drive to Survive (Netflix)

The Formula 1: Drive to Survive series was a serious hit for Netflix. Many people, like me, who sat down to watch this on a Sunday finished it in one sitting. The series is absolutely addictive! We’d recommend watching it when you have the time to fully commit an entire day to watching this great series!

After the success of the first series, Netflix has commissioned the second season of Netflix’s Formula 1: Drive to Survive. The new series dropped on Feb. 28, and it’s just as good as the extremely well-received first season!

More than any other viewing experience, the series manages to capture the true drama of F1, shining a light on the stories – personal, political, technical – that make the sport so high-octane. The 10-part series was made by executive producer James Gay-Rees, who was behind the biopic documentaries Senna and Amy.

What we really love about this series is the approach they take, focusing on everything but the actual races. We all know there’s an abundance of footage of the race itself, but it’s what happens before, between and after the cars hit the track that really tells the story of the sport.

2 The Grand Tour (Amazon)

The Grand Tour is a motoring television series, created by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and Andy Wilman, produced by Amazon exclusively for its online streaming service Amazon Prime Video. The GT premiered on 18 November 2016. The programme was created in the wake of the departure of Clarkson, Hammond, May and Wilman from the BBC series Top Gear, and originally contracted with 36 episodes over three years.

The Grand Tour has been so successful because during each episode you know you’ll see the three amigos in their format of driving, bantering with each other and ragging supercars none of us could ever afford very fast on track, living vicariously a tad.

Its over-cinematic scope, the wide-angle shots and explosive setpieces coming across as increasingly elaborate ways of saying, “We’re better.” But it’s not the movie trailer moments that keep the fans coming back, nor is it the adventurous destinations. To be honest, it’s not even the cars. It’s the stuff that hasn’t changed since Top Gear: three men playing pranks on each other and revving their engines.

3. Hyperdrive (Netflix)

Hyperdrive is a new series created by the team at Netflix, if you’re thinking this is a series that’s going to be exactly the same as every other automotive TV series on our list, think again! Hyperdrive is the racing equivalent of Ninja Warrior and Wipeout, this 10-episode racing series sees talented drivers competing in one of the most elaborate competitions ever!

The world’s most elite street racers test their limits in supercharged custom cars on the most extreme automotive obstacle course ever built. Drifting, at least the type you see in car chase movies like The Fast and the Furious franchise, is an actual thing in the real world. Drivers who are skilled at the art of spins, sharp reverses, and drifts spend money tricking out cars and enter competitions, you can just imagine what a car insurance quote for these people might be. If you like your tv series to give you an adrenaline rush from the comfort of your home, this is the series you need to be watching!

4. Top Gear (Netflix)

Who doesn’t love the old top gear episodes? Who would have guessed that Three middle-aged men wittering about spectacular car crashes would make great television!

Top Gear is a television series, conceived by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman, launched in 2002 and broadcast in the United Kingdom. Top Gear wasn’t just a TV show, was a phenomenon. With its ludicrous stunts, enormous budgets and defiantly non-PC edge, it quickly become a global smash hit. The on-screen gang was completed with the arrival of the cerebral James May for the second series. Whatever you think of these three white, middle-class, middle-aged men with their schoolboy humour. Their onscreen chemistry and cartoon characters took shape over several series

If you’re a car lover you’re bound to enjoy watching this series.

5. Yellow Yellow Yellow: The IndyCar Safety Team (Amazon)

During Practice for the 2015 Indy 500, James Hinchcliffe suffered a horrific crash that nearly cost him his life. This 1 hour television special tells the story of the fateful day and the Holmatro Safety Team heroes who saved his life. It also goes behind the scenes to see how the entire Indycar operation applies science to proactively prevent injuries and save lives.

While at any car race, you’ll see signs everywhere that say ‘Motorsport is Dangerous’. In 2015, James Hinchcliffe learned just how dangerous it can be, when he crashed and was pierced by a piece of suspension from his car.

This Amazon Prime TV documentary looks at the firefighter paramedic team that follows the Indy series from track to track helping drivers out of difficult and life-threatening situations. It talks to all those involved, including Hinchcliffe, who credits them with getting him out of the car ‘in one piece’.

Really interesting series to see the men and women striving to make this sport as safe as possible and being there to support when disasters strike.

6. Journey to Le Mans (Amazon)

Journey to Le Mans is a 2014 British documentary film directed by Charlotte Fantelli about British Privateer Team Jota Sport on their bid to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 category in 2014.

The Journey to Le Mans documentary takes an intimate look at what it takes to compete in the most prestigious endurance motor race on earth.

It was a season of endless drama: first there was Simon Dolan’s horror crash at Silverstone when, for an agonising thirty minutes, the team did not know if he was dead or alive; then, at Le Mans, the team lost driver Marc Gene when he was recalled by Audi just 48 hours before the race and had to summon Oliver Turvey as a last-minute replacement; yet they still pulled off a glorious, improbable maiden victory in motor sport’s toughest challenge.

Have you seen this documentary? What are your thoughts?

7. GRAND PRIX Driver (Amazon)

‘Grand Prix Driver’ breaks new ground by going behind the scenes at McLaren through its turbulent 2017 pre-season.

McLaren became the first team to open its doors, announcing last spring it was working with Amazon on a new series giving unprecedented insight into the team. The McLaren racing team is one of the most prolific in the storied history of Formula One, but it has come upon hard times of late.

The docuseries, narrated by Michael Douglas, follows the team during a 2017 season that McLaren hopes is better than the two previous years, which proved to be challenging. One of the team’s best hopes is rookie driver Stoffel Vandoorne, who begins his first season in Formula One while learning from veteran Fernando Alonso, but mechanical issues with the vehicles put the McLaren team’s future in jeopardy.

Stoffel Vandoorne is experiencing his first F1 pre-season, we get to see behind the scenes action from the intensive physical training to sponsor events and the car launch itself.

This show provides a fantastic insight into the efforts that go into making an F1 team tick off-track a well as on it, and also shows a more personal, human side to Vandoorne, who was largely overshadowed by the Fernando Alonso hype through last year.

8. Fastest Car (Netflix)

The premise of this show is simple, four cars are chosen to drag race a quarter mile against each other in the episodes: Three “sleeper cars” pitted against a typical supercar, like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Each episode follows the same basic format. The “sleepers,” are souped-up versions of cars that would normally barely make it to the parking lot of a racetrack, much less be the main event (an ‘87 Monte Carlo or an ‘84 Chevy Pickup — even a minivan pops up in the first episode). The drivers of the ‘Sleeper’ cars want to prove that they don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to attain speed and performance like someone who would just walk into a dealership and drop cash for a supercar without knowing anything about it.

What we enjoyed about this series is, during its eight episodes, fastest car brings viewers a fascinating exploration of tuner car culture outside of the usual Porsche and Ferrari chatter.

Have you seen this series? What did you think?

9. Car Masters: Rust To Riches (Netflix)

Restoring and flipping cars can be a lucrative business for firms that do it. One such company is Gotham Garage is considered one of the most respected in the industry. During this show you will see all the awesome work they get up to. Also, it is ahead of the curve in a sense as it’s one of the only TV shows about restoration that features female mechanics.

The premise revolves around the crew from Gotham Garage, which has built a number of props for movie studios and television shows over the years. The group, led by Mark Towle, give classic cars modern makeovers in an attempt to raise their values and ultimately earn the company large profits. Each episode takes up one unique project.

10. The Gymkhana Files (Amazon)

An eight-episode unscripted series featuring famed motorsports star and entrepreneur Ken Block and the making of Gymkhana 10, the recently-announced tenth installment of his award-winning, record-breaking Gymkhana Film series.

The Gymkhana Files provides an exclusive look behind the filming, the struggles and the personalities that go into making of one of the biggest viral campaigns of all time, along with the untold stories and never-before-seen footage from Block’s previous nine films.

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