OTTAWA – Canadians, it seems, can’t get enough of television programs featuring aging cars being bashed to pieces by people with dubious driving skills. Although “America’s Worst Driver” came and went from The Travel Channel after just one season in 2010, “Canada’s Worst Driver” is about to start production of its ninth season and remains among the top 10 cable shows in Canadian ratings.
On Monday, a spin-off of “Canada’s Worst Driver” will close its first season. Rather than focus on drivers’ shortcomings, “Last Car Standing” concentrates on deplorably bad cars and the events leading up to their destruction.
“It’s death or glory,” said Guy O’Sullivan, president of Proper Television, which produces the shows for the Canadian version of the Discovery Channel. “The people on the show kind of know that they should have quit these cars a long time ago.”
Unlike “Canada’s Worst Driver,” which graduates a single contestant (if that), each of the eight hour-long episodes of “Last Car Standing” ends with four vehicles destroyed, following a series of competitions that often severely damage even the surviving vehicles.
Mr. O’Sullivan’s original plan was to toss the losing cars off of a cliff. But after getting permission to use a suitable hill as mass grave for cars proved impossible, an arguably more dramatic means was devised. After each round, the losing vehicle is smashed and grabbed by a demolition machine that resembles an oversized excavator with a claw at the end of its mechanical arm. It lifts the losing wreck into the air and slams it onto a fierce looking 36-foot-tall steel spike. In a testament to their decrepitude, Mr. O’Sullivan noted that many cars produce “a shower of rust” when they are impaled upon the spike.
The series was filmed at an abandoned Lincoln dealership – rebuilt to vaguely resemble a junkyard – in Mississauga, Ontario, a Toronto suburb. The challenges vary slightly each episode but generally involve “hot laps” on a tiny track; a power test involving climbing absurd grades or pulling equally improbable weights; a three-way drag race usually run in both forward and reverse: and, for the two final survivors, a lap of a what might justifiably be called a torture test circuit: the Beater Buster.
Crashes, often quite dramatic, are common, which explains why the cars’ drivers and passengers wear helmets and are strapped into their seats with safety harnesses. Although severe body damage and total suspension and transmission failures are common, the only close call for human well-being this season came when a 1997 BMW 318i burst into flames during a three way tug of war. (No one was injured; the tug of war event has not been repeated.)
Discovery Canada, which is owned by Bell Media and licenses trademarks and some programming from the American channel of the same name, said that audience numbers for Last Car Standing are not yet available. But Jodi Cook, a spokeswoman for the network, said that “Canada’s Worst Driver” is “most successful series of all time on Discovery” and was the first cable show in Canada, outside of live sports, to draw more than 1 million viewers per episode.
Working on BBC’s Top Gear gave Mr. O’Sullivan his introduction to reality-based automotive programming. He also worked for three seasons on “Britain’s Worst Driver,” the show that started it all and which franchises that concept worldwide.
Despite his success, Mr. O’Sullivan offered no direct answer about why Canadians enjoy watching bad driving and even worse cars. He did, however, admit to being baffled by positive reception contestants have given the prizes for “Last Car Standing.” No cash is offered. Instead, each week’s winner has the option of receiving $10,000 in upgrades and repairs to their cars (vehicles which are probably not worth more than scrap value) or taking their chances in Monday’s finale for $50,000 in repairs and improvements, an amount that exceeds the original cost of almost every car in the series.
“It’s all a bit foolish,” Mr. O’Sullivan said.
Proper is now recruiting contestants for the second season of “Last Car Standing,” a process which is easier than finding people willing to face national humiliation on “Canada’s Worst Driver,” said Mr. O’Sullivan, who added, “I’m happy to report that Canada isn’t going to run out of bad drivers any time soon.”
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