It's the three front men who make this car crazy series fire up the way it does.
Enormously over-opinionated, now rather old and paunchy Jeremy Clarkson, tiny loveable eager Richard Hammond and suave-by-comparison James May are perfect casting and a bit more than the sum of their parts.
And the cars tend to be stars in the show too, the bigger and the boysier the better.
In the new series, the chaps are celebrating the birthday of the V8 by taking large foolish cars of their own choosing on a road trip through the wilds of South America.
On their merry, mad, bickering, breakdown-prone way, the old boys take very little notice of the locals and only passing interest in the jaw-dropping scenery.
Clarkson, especially, was much more aroused about staying in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid's old house than much else.
But the attitude is what makes the fun on this 2600km jaunt which, in the first episode alone, involved desert, snow, gooey swamp, scary roads, scarier bridges and condors.
On the subject of man and wheels, there's another new show, this one locally made, running on a much tighter budget and with a cast of only one, though he is English.
Along For the Ride is a cheerful folksy series on a cheerful folksy sort of theme, New Zealand's relationship with the bicycle.
It stars Simon Morton, a popular Radio New Zealand reporter/host.
It's nicely filmed and all, but it's lame stuff and not very focused.
The first episode started in the obvious place, Oamaru with all its penny-farthing bikes and men with beards and silly outfits.
Then it drifted off into being a mix of Morton's inevitable "dream" of riding a bike around the country, a history of bikes in New Zealand and a few on-the-ride colour pieces.
Morton, who has a natural charm, doesn't really get to shine, at one point even asking, "You're probably wondering why we're here?" which was prescient of him.
I wasn't entirely clear on what I was watching, and I'm not at all sure how much I want to know about bikes.
