A total of 67,000 people turned up to watch Top Gear trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, as they made their first trip to South Africa this month.
For two days at the spectacular Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban, Top Gear entertained with supercars, stunts, pyrotechnics and hair-raising antics in a massive live show.
“South Africa is amazing. This show in Durban will go down as one of our best Top Gear live events ever. That’s because this is our first ever show in a stadium and our biggest live audience yet,” said Clarkson.
Since 2008 Top Gear Live events have played to over 1.2 million people in 12 different countries including South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, Russia and Holland.
But it was more than the size of the audience that had Clarkson gushing. The venue for the four live stadium shows (15 – 16 June) Moses Mabhida stadium, which was built to host the semi-final of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, clearly impressed the host.
“Durban is an astonishing city and Moses Mabhida is an amazing stadium… I have never seen anything like this in the world,” Clarkson said at a tribute dinner honouring Durban-born former McLaren F1 car designer Gordon Murray.
The stadium, with its iconic 350m long arch, the longest spanning arch of any stadium in the world, is not just a sporting venue, but a popular tourist attraction, too. A sky car takes visitors up to the arch’s highest point at 106m, where they can get out and enjoy uninterrupted views of Durban’s famed Golden Mile, which boasts some of the world’s best surf and a newly upgraded beach promenade.
“The River Aquarama, The Eagle Speedster. The Humber Bridge. The Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. These are the four best looking man made things in the world,” Clarkson tweeted to his 326 300 followers after the Top Gear show.
KwaZulu-Natal province and the City of Durban have signed a partnership with the Top Gear Festival to bring the show to the Moses Mabhida Stadium for three years.
