I felt Top Gear became about the presenters and less about the cars. 5th Gear stayed true to its roots

Tiff is a really nice guy always has time for a chat,  many years ago I was time keeper on a Welsh stage,   Tiff came blasting through the finish in a Volvo, brakes red and smoke every where.  The Navigator jumped out and handed his cards to me for the time stamp. Tiff pipes up and said how much fun he was having asking which club we were from etc,, Navigator jumps back in  GO GO GO ...Tiff says " we have plenty of time ",  thanked us all for marshalling the stage, then disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Did a passenger ride with Tiff in a BMW M3 round Thruxton a few years ago. We did five unbelievable laps, Tiff didn’t stop talking and laughing, doing about 120mph down the straight with one hand on the wheel then suddenly into a bend sliding it round as though it was the most natural thing ever. Amazing control. FANTASTIC driver. We need more Tiff.😀👍

There are lots of legendary car presenters, but Tiff was the first journalist on TV who could actually push a car to its limits, and more-often beyond. He would have been more relevant to Top Gear if it was actually a show about cars and driving and not a scripted reality lifestyle show with cars in the background. They should have at least offered him the job as the Stig in the 2000’s rebooted version.

You know it's going to be a good video when Tiff Needell is on it.

What a great, well-spoken guy Tiff is! You can feel his passion for cars and racing

The fastest TV show driver ever 👍

I really preferred Tiff as a TG presenter. Obviously the big three had great success. But Tiff had credibility.

If Tiff did a show on classic race cars I’d be watching!!!!

I was working on Top Gear magazine at Woodlands in late 2001. For a while I was sitting directly opposite James May. On my first day James said: “What are you doing sitting at Wilman’s desk?”
Hello would have been a preferable greeting, but I explained that Kevin had assigned me that desk.
A few weeks later it was announced that the new director of programmes at BBC TWO was going to axe all magazines programmes, including Top Gear.
And it was announced that all Top Gear presenters were moving to Channel 5.
We all feared for our jobs but were then told that there was a plan: Top Gear would return as an entertainment programme: less checking the boot space of a Vauxhall Corsa, more blowing up Morris Marinas with dynamite.
It was a rare case of a change being good for all involved — and I suspect Wilman was the mastermind.
Jon Bentley got the Gadget Show at Five and got to make Panic Mechanics for BBC TWO. Almost all the former presenters got work on Fifth Gear. And us dogsbodies on the magazine kept our jobs.

Tiff is a legend, always has been

Funny hearing Tiff talk about giving it the old Hollywood treatment behind the wheel. I was an instructor at the Nigel Mansell Racing School at Brands Hatch, and every so often Tiff would be there entertaining some corporate group or another - he was one of the items on the corporate menu so to speak - and the big thing was hot laps with Tiff Needell. Now Tiff is a nice bloke and a very good driver, but he’d drive us all mad, because he’d be out on track while the school was running giving it large everywhere with the Hollywood treatment - which looks and feels fast, but is actually just scrubbing speed - while we’re out there doing high speed demo laps and tripping over him every other lap. “Tiff, get the bloody hell out of the way!!” 😄 The other thing that wound us up was that frequently, the corporate guests would also go through the school, and quite often go straight from the passenger seat of Tiff’s car into the driver’s seat of our car thinking that what they had just seen Tiff doing was the way they were supposed to drive! 😧 All in all, I wouldn’t trade those days for anything though, but please Tiff, just get out of the way! 😂

I would love to see a reboot miniseries of Victory By Design with Tiff as the host narrator and driver.  No one alive is more like De Cadenet than Tiff really, and with a Top Gear level production budget in 2028 it could be brilliant.  OK DeCadenet had more of an intense seriousness that bolstered the show while Tiff is more cheerful and funny when he needs to be.

Tiff is a top bloke, he was an excellent presenter on both TG and 5th Gear- and what a driver! His car control is absolutely fantastic. I always recall him thrashing a Ford Puma around a track with Clarkson and Quentin on board, and Mr Wilson was giggling like a giddy schoolboy at Tiff's epic antics behind the wheel. He made that Puma dance!

Met tiff at Thruxton at the BTCC race 10/11 years ago ISH, proper humble guy, very approachable, happy to talk to anyone

This just popped up on my feed. What a great interview! I didn't know a lot about the 5th gear business. Smiled for 10 minutes watching this. His natural story telling, his humour... great bloke.

I have a lot of time for Tiff, he is such a down to earth guy with stacks of interesting story’s.
I love watching him on TV

Tiff greatest hour was 1994 drive of the McLaren F1 😮a still look at it to this day 🫡🫡🫡

Always liked tiff he seems like such a nice bloke

The sultan of slide is one of my favourite drivers