How Top Gear came to Belfast

The Twingo is lowered into the Belfast Sewer

Last night Top Gear screened  a road test of the new Renault Twingo which was filmed in Belfast this summer.  

Stephen McGrath, the long man of Weber Shandwick Belfast, can take full credit for enticing Mr Clarkson et al here. It all started about a year ago when we were chatting about how to mark the end of the Belfast Sewer’s construction in an interesting way. Before we knew it the Italian Job was blaring from Youtube on the office computers and a plan was hatched to pitch the idea of a small car in the Belfast sewer to Top Gear.

Stephen fired off an email to the Top Gear team and to our surprise they were interested. Many meetings, safety briefings and site inspections later the green light came through. The teams’ at Atkins and Northern Ireland Water embraced the opportunity to facilitate Top Gear when the idea was put to them.

From a public relations point of view the story was a great success. Great PR for the city and prime time exposure for one of Europe’s largest engineeringprojects. It has also generated a acre of press coverage since the story first leaked last July.

Project team members and Mr C

As for our Stephen. He says he met the stig, but we don’t believe him.