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Treasure trove of British newsreels reveals Top Gear's ancestors

Long after television grew to dominate American and British homes, newsreel producer British Pathé kept at it, documenting the news of the day until finally ceasing production of new short films in 1970 after 60 years of effort. Earlier this month, all of British Pathé's 85,000 films were put online — including fascinating, rare and often weird car footage that resemble nothing so much as a jet-age Top Gear.

Just like today, Pathé's cameras couldn't stay away from odd vehicles — whether home-built electric runabouts good for avoiding World War II gas rations or Italian flying cars — and because it often shot film only, it would spice up the product with jazz music and the bounciest British narration this side of "Thomas the Tank Engine." Besides, what's so scary about a glass cube that can go 50 mph?

(Also: Does he mean what I think he means when he says it's "useless for courting?")

For sheer historical delight, nothing I've seen matches this report from the 1962 London Motor Show. It has everything; pass-through dog cages, models in short shorts and a voice-over that portrays the British auto industry on the verge of global dominance. (Most of the brands it features — Jensen, Hillman, Austin, Morris, Sunbeam — have long ceased to exist.)

Pathé wasn't afraid to get it's cameras up close; there's lots of racing footage from Le Mans, Indianapolis and other circuts that demonstrate just how loud and deadly the sport used to be. And much like Top Gear might today, Pathé went full throttle to promote what it dubbed the Sports Car of the Year — the 1955 MG MGA, complete with high-speed test, racing background and capturing Sir Stirling Moss' land-speed record run in a modified MG streamliner at Bonneville, Utah. It's enough to even make Jeremy Clarkson shed a tear.