Here's another, particularly personal example of what I love the show so much:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wQ64UEbm4_o

Jeremy's comparing the new Civic Type-R against the previous version; the previous model is, apart from the engine & tranny (and some other stuff that I've since equalized), the same as the Civic I own now.

The new car has been almost universally praised in the European press (for that matter, so was the older one). I've got an issue of CAR magazine that basically calls it the best all-around hot hatch currently on the market. The specific car that Jeremy's driving is regularly featured in Top Gear magazine's "Lifers" section as one of their staff actually owns it, and he always raves about how much fun it is.

Yet, in the video, Jeremy simply rails on it, saying how it's worse than the old car.

That's what I like about the show. American car shows are either sanitized reports where they read from product brochures (any episode of Motorweek is that bad) or sponsor-driven sales pitches. The Top Gear guys, likely helped by a lack of reasons to please show sponsors, have no qualms about saying that a car sucks. They'll have something like a Bentley or some Lamborghini variant and call it "rubbish".