---
title: "Top Gear’s New Host Once Seduced a Rolls-Royce With Poetry"
description: "We cannot tell if this is satire."
date: "2016-02-16"
modified: "2016-02-16"
authors:
  - name: "Ben Keeshin"
    link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/ben-keeshin"
url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/2198/top-gears-new-host-once-seduced-a-rolls-royce-with-poetry"
categories:
  - "News"
  - "News by Brand"
  - "Rolls-Royce News"
tags:
  - "luxury"
  - "Rolls-Royce"
  - "Top Gear"
---

# Top Gear’s New Host Once Seduced a Rolls-Royce With Poetry

![](<https://www.thedrive.com/wp-content/uploads/images-by-url-td/content/archive-images/021616-rolls-royce-ghost-series-ii-hero.jpg>)
*\<em\>www.thedrive.com</em>*

Of [*Top Gear*’s just-announced hosts, Rory Reid](<https://www.topgear.com/car-news/top-gear-tv/meet-your-new-top-gear-presenters>) is the least recognizable. But now we know this: The man once sweet-talked a Rolls Royce Ghost Series II with such passion, the car unfurled umbrella. Yes, standing strong and serious, Rory Reid looked upon the flanks of Rolls-Royce’s entry-level saloon and waxed poetic about lambswool carpets, power and the car’s weight. (The latter’s a weird move, Rory.) As far as I can tell, despite the sepia filter, smoldering gaze and swooping cameras, there’s no satire here. This is straight-up love poetry: RR loves RR. Happy belated Valentine’s.

Things begin with a solidly [Adele feel: *Hello*](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQHsXMglC9A>), *it’s me, a three-ton British luxury sedan named for a poltergeist*. In a gesture of solitude, the Rolls sits beside a dead tree, somewhere on a British plain. It’s a cloudy day, because of the U.K., and sadness. Like a lost scene from *[The Lake House](<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V02lqEpbk2Y>)*, that regrettable 2006 Sandra Bullock rom-com about a time-travelling cottage, shots of Reid are overlaid with shots of the mournful Ghost. *Ours is a love that can only live through the magic of cinema*. TV presenters don’t own new Rolls-Royces, Rory. It’s just not done.

The name of this type of poetry is “epistolary,” or a poem read as a letter. That means all lines are directly addressed using the second person, “you.”(Contemporary examples include the Alicia Keys classic, “[You Don’t Know My Name](<https://youtu.be/_ST6ZRbhGiA>).”) Here, Rory intones: “So, you’re back again, huh? I told you, never leave me. I wanted you for myself: I was cold and I was greedy.” Meanwhile, the chamber orchestra responsible for the score to *Downton Abbey* whinges in the background. The rhymes are decent, but not *Hamilton*-worthy; the camera work is a little nauseating. We wish the RecombuCars crew had pushed things really over the top—Rory Reid atop a bed of roses?—instead of trying to hit me in the heart. I didn’t weep and I didn’t laugh, just spent seven minutes looking like the emoji with a flat light for a mouth.

You want to see me cry about unrequited love, Rory? Come by any day of the week.

https://youtube.com/embed/Yd_6P_AQj6U

## Author
Ben Keeshin is a former staff writer for Maxim, and before that, contributed writing to the digital sides of Road & Track and Vanity Fair.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://twitter.com/BnKshn>)