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Twist The Throttle Moves to Discovery HD Theater

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Twist the Throttle

Twist The Throttle, which we told you about in March, is making the move from the web to the TV screen. Dylan Weiss, our buddy over at Twisting Asphalt is pretty excited since he’s been working hard to put this thing together. Dylan says

the web portion of the project was built on a matrix of four films that ran roughly four or five minutes each — The Discovery HD Theater broadcast clock is 49 minutes long and this additional running time allowed us to delve much deeper into each brands remarkable history while showcasing some truly amazing and rarely if ever seen historical film & video from each manufacturer’s milestone moments in the past. Nothing like this has ever been filmed or shown on Television before.

Lots of interviews, great riding in beautiful countryside, behind the scenes footage, it sounds like must see TV. Here’s the whole rundown with air dates so you can set your DVR:

Press release follows:

HD THEATER TAKES TO THE ROAD WITH TWIST THE THROTTLE, AN EIGHT-PART SERIES EXPLORING SOME OF THE GREATEST MOTORCYCLE BRANDS IN THE WORLD

Millions of people ride motorcycles and millions more fantasize about what it would be like to ride these cultural icons of speed, freedom, craftsmanship and personal rebellion. HD Theater’s new series, TWIST THE THROTTLE, takes audiences on a remarkable 36,000 mile journey across the globe to explore eight of the most famous sport motorcycling brands.

Each episode focuses on a single brand, showcasing the remarkable history; the behind-closed-door factory, design facilities and R&D departments; and ultimately, what it is like to ride these magnificent machines on some of the most picturesque roads and spectacular racetracks in the world.

The brands covered in TWIST THE THROTTLE include Bimota, BMW, Ducati, Honda, Kawasaki, MV Agusta, Suzuki and Yamaha. TWIST THE THROTTLE premieres on HD Theater starting Monday, January 5 and stories will continue to be featured on HD Theater’s online home for motorized content, Turbo.com. TWIST THE THROTTLE is narrated by actor Ed Quinn (Eureka, CSI:NY), who is an avid sport bike rider.

Using spectacular 1080i high-definition and 5.1 digital surround sound, TWIST THE THROTTLE takes viewers directly to challenging racetracks like Kawasaki’s Autopolis on the island of Kyushu and Honda’s top-secret proving grounds in California’s Mojave Desert. For the first time ever, outside cameras were permitted on Yamaha’s private test track, Fukoroi, in Hamamatsu where TWIST THE THROTTLE put two of Yamaha’s newest sports bikes to the test.

In addition to exclusive access to these private test facilities, the series travels on the open road through picturesque locales like northernItaly’s Futa Pass. Originally an ancient Roman road linking Florence to Bologna, the Futa Pass has over 200 curves carved into the mountainside in just a 20 mile stretch. In addition, TWIST THE THROTTLE journeys through the history of each brand through interviews with the people behind their unique design philosophies.

The series features an exclusive interview with Massimo Tamburini, considered to be the “Michelangelo of Italian motorcycle design,” who created some of the most iconic motorcycles including the Ducati 916 and the MV Agusta F4. Normally a recluse, Tamburini unlocks the doors of his design studio to reveal how he creates “mechanical art” and why he believes machines have souls.

Additional interviews feature some of the most important names in themotorcycle world telling each brand’s remarkable story including:

    Honda’s Masanori Aoki, BMW’s David Robb and Yamaha’s Atsushi Ishiyama
    Former racing World Champions Freddie Spencer, Wayne Rainey, and Kevin Schwantz
    Current and Former American road racing stars Mat Mladin, Neil Hodgson, Miguel Duhamel, Ben Bostrom, Jamie Hacking and Reg Pridmore
    Renowned motorcycle journalists Nick Ienatsch, Mark Hoyer, Mitch Boehm, Clement Salvadori and Mark Tuttle

 

UPDATE: Dylan just got notice of a schedule change:
“Discovery HD Theater has decided to push the premiere of the series back until later in the 1st Quarter of 2009 in order to give it more promotion on both TV and in the Mags.”

Unfortunately we don’t have the new air dates just yet but I’ll post them as soon as the new schedule is announced.

DISCOVERY HD THEATER AIR DATES & TIMES
(NOTE: ALL TIMES ARE ‘LOCAL TIMES’)
Monday, January 5th 10PM HONDA
Monday, January 12th 10PM DUCATI
Monday, January 19th 10PM BMW
Monday, January 26th 10PM KAWASAKI
Monday, February 2nd 10PM SUZUKI
Monday, February 9th 10PM MV AGUSTA
Monday, February 16th 10PM BIMOTA/ALPINESTARS
Monday, February 23rd 10PM YAMAHA

Link: Cry Havoc Productions

Comments

  2. Just wondering what is meant by this:

    (NOTE: ALL TIMES ARE ‘LOCAL TIMES’)

    Since you posted on the web, I have no idea what is “local” time.

    I just don’t want to miss it. (-: I guess I should just “check my local listings.” 🙂

  3. No cable here, so unless they do some sort of web broadcast like Joost or crunchyroll, its a no go in this house 🙁

  6. I just looked for this show on the Discovery HD line up and the schedule does not show it. Has it been cancelled/delayed?

  7. This program is clearly not in HD Theater’s lineup. Does anyone know what happened, or if it is going to be rescheduled?

  9. The Twist the Throttle show on BMW was great, except their was 1 significant gap in the history. BMW manufactured aircraft engines in World War 2. The Folke Wolf 190 had a BMW air cooled rotary engine in it. The company was specifically targeted by Allied bombing and after the war had nothing left. My understanding is that the the motorcycles were the first product to be manufactured after the war by reverse engineering because all the orginal drawings and records of products made before the war were destroyed. Why was this omitted from Twist the throttle?

  10. Currently watching ‘twist the throttle’ midnight to 1 am on May 5th on HD theater. This episode is about the history of Suzuki. The GS750 which is a 4 cylinder 4 stroke was the subject. The photos shown of the GS750 were actually the photos of a GT750 which is a 3 cylinder 2 stroke.
    How could they make such an obvious error?

  11. “Any word on the ability to purchase the programs. A DVD box set would be nice”. The HD Theater is an odd station over here where I live. All it said on the screen is test. It never says what is on. If I didn’t have internet I could not get the air time. The sad part all the air time is based on Eastern Time zone. The Discovery Channel for this program and a few others on this channel are really hard to find out what’s playing and there time and date. I would just like to purchase the whole set and just forget about the discovery channel if there schedule is that bad that you can’t find the time the show comes on unless you have an internet connection to search the time. If I didn’t have a connection at my job I wouldn’t known there was other shows and this “twist of throttle”.

    I forgot to mention that I live in the Seattle area and the cable/satellite company is DISH Network. On the station, it only said TEST. Which to alot of people they think DISH is only running some system check, until you click on it. Then you go WOW, what’s this. And what kind of show is this “Twist the Throttle”

  12. It’s monday the 24th of Aug. I have “Twist The Throttle” on the tube right now. The Suzuki story. Maybe they should fire their editers as the are telling the story of the ‘GS 750″,and are showing the “GT 750” water buffalo and are calling it a four cylinder 4 stroke.How dumb do they think we are. Makes me wonder how many other UNTRUTHS are told on this show as fact. I like the format but to show off a “Buffalo” and try to passit off as a 4 stroke is just a bit to much for me.