Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/02/11/top_gear_us/

America spared Top Gear Mexican quips

Beeb cuts 'offensive' jibes for stateside broadcast

By Lester Haines

Posted in Bootnotes, 11th February 2011 13:22 GMT

The BBC has announced that the episode of Top Gear featuring witty analysis of Mexicans will be diplomatically edited before its stateside broadcast next week.

Auntie apologised last week for the controversial quippery of presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, which included a description of a Mexican sports car as "a lazy, feckless and flatulent oaf with a moustache, leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat".

This didn't go down too well south of the border, with the Mexican ambassador to Britain firing off a letter of complaint over the "offensive, xenophobic and humiliating" remarks.

The corporation conceded the quips were "rude" and "mischievous", but insisted there was "no vindictiveness" behind them.

It's decided, though, to air the show on BBC America without the "news" portion in which the "light-hearted banter" appears.

A BBC spokeswoman rather feebly explained that shows are "routinely edited for international transmission". ®