Cars for Videos: Why Certain Cars Work on Screen

The cars that work best in video content share three traits: bold color that stands out against the background, a distinct sound, and a story worth telling. The Grand Tour proved it across five seasons, 41 countries, and 187 cars before ending in 2024, and Car Crash TV built five seasons entirely from real dashcam footage submitted by drivers. Both shows point to the same lesson for anyone filming their own car content: pick a vehicle, and a camera setup, that actually gives the footage a reason to exist.

What Makes a Car Work in Video Content

Color is the first thing a lens sees. A car that contrasts with its background, a red coupe against gray asphalt, a yellow hatchback against green fields, reads instantly on a phone screen or a thumbnail, while a silver or gray car tends to disappear into the road and sky around it. This is one reason bright paint jobs show up so often in car-review channels and TV specials: it is not vanity, it is visibility.

Sound matters almost as much as color. An engine note, an exhaust burble, or even tires chirping on a corner gives a video texture that a silent shot of a parked car never will. Shows built around dashcam footage lean on this too: a screech of brakes or a horn blast a split second before impact is often what makes a clip watchable in the first place.

The last piece is story. A car with a reason to be on screen, a record-setting hypercar, a beat-up first car getting restored, a near-miss caught by chance, holds attention longer than a spec sheet ever could. The Grand Tour built entire episodes around this idea by handing its hosts unreliable, unglamorous cars and letting the drama of keeping them running carry the story.

The Grand Tour: 187 Cars Across 5 Seasons

The Grand Tour, hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, ran for five seasons on Prime Video and visited 41 countries, featuring 187 cars across its run, from million-dollar hypercars to deliberately terrible secondhand purchases the hosts were sent to drive across a desert or a jungle.

The show ended on September 13, 2024, with a feature-length special called One For The Road. Rather than another exotic supercar, the finale sent the three hosts through Zimbabwe in cars they had always personally wanted to own: Clarkson took a modified 1982 Lancia Montecarlo Spyder, Hammond chose a 1974 Ford Capri 3000 GXL, and May picked a 1974 Triumph Stag 3.0 V8. The trip finished at Kubu Island in Botswana, the same location that closed one of their earliest Top Gear specials nearly two decades earlier.

Car Crash TV: Built Entirely From Dashcam Footage

Car Crash TV takes the opposite approach from The Grand Tour: instead of a production budget, it runs on real dashcam and CCTV clips submitted by drivers around the world, edited together and narrated by Chris Barrie and Darren Altman. The series has aired five seasons since 2015 and is available to stream on Tubi, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

Every clip in the show exists because someone had a camera already running. That is the practical lesson for anyone hoping to capture their own dramatic or funny driving moment: the footage only exists if the camera was recording before the moment happened, which is the entire reason dashcams are mounted and left running rather than switched on after the fact.

How to Choose a Car (and Gear) for Your Own Video Content

If you are filming your own car content rather than just watching it, the same three traits apply. Pick a car with a color that will not blend into the road or sky in your usual filming location. Roll the windows down or get a mic closer to the exhaust so the engine note actually registers on camera instead of being drowned out by wind noise. And find an angle on the story, a road trip, a build, a daily commute with real personality, rather than just a static walk-around.

For the footage itself, a dual-channel dash cam is the simplest way to capture usable clips without holding a phone while driving, whether that is scenic road-trip footage, a POV of a favorite backroad, or Car Crash TV-style close calls. If you want a second opinion on specific hardware, we have tested dash cams like the DDPAI 4K Dash Cam (Z60) and the BOTSLAB 4K Dash Cam in more detail.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Cars Are Featured in The Grand Tour?

Across its five-season run, The Grand Tour featured everything from million-dollar hypercars to secondhand bangers, often pitting the two against each other. Its final special, “One For The Road” (2024), sent Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May through Zimbabwe in a 1982 Lancia Montecarlo Spyder, a 1974 Ford Capri 3000 GXL, and a 1974 Triumph Stag 3.0 V8 — three cars they had each personally wanted to own.

How Is Car Crash TV Filmed?

Car Crash TV is not filmed by a production crew chasing incidents — it is edited entirely from real dashcam and CCTV footage submitted by drivers around the world, then narrated by Chris Barrie and Darren Altman. The show has run for five seasons and streams on services including Tubi, Prime Video, and Apple TV.

Why Do Certain Cars Work Well in Video Content?

A car reads well on screen when it does three things at once: contrasts visually with its surroundings, sounds distinct in the engine note or exhaust, and carries a story, whether that is a record-setting supercar, a battered old runabout, or the star of a dashcam near-miss.

Which Cars Are Popular for Video Shoots?

Sports cars in bright, saturated colors remain common picks because they hold up well in wide shots and thumbnails, but plenty of successful car channels build entire series around ordinary daily drivers. The personality of the car and the story around it matter more than the badge on the hood.

Did The Grand Tour End? When?

Yes. The Grand Tour ended on September 13, 2024, with the feature-length special “One For The Road,” which closed out five seasons, 41 countries, and 187 cars, and marked the last time Clarkson, Hammond, and May appeared together as a motoring show.

Do I Need a Dash Cam to Start Making Car Videos?

Not for every kind of car video, but it is the single most useful piece of gear if you want POV drive footage, road-trip content, or Car Crash TV-style clips. A dual-channel dash cam that records the road ahead and behind gives you the most usable footage per clip.

Conclusion

Choosing the right car for video content comes down to the same three things every time: color that reads on camera, sound that gives the shot texture, and a story that gives viewers a reason to keep watching. The Grand Tour spent five seasons and 187 cars proving that even a broken-down bargain buy can carry an episode, while Car Crash TV proved that any dashcam, running at the right moment, can do the same. Whichever kind of video you are making, start there.