Testosteron (lost Polish motoring magazine programme; 2005)

Title card.

Status: Lost

Testosteron was a Polish motoring magazine programme. It was broadcast on TVN Turbo, a Polish TV channel aimed at men with main focus on motoring shows and was aired for an unspecified amount of time in 2005. The show was named "a cheap copy of Top Gear," since it followed the British show's formula closely - it was led by three hosts (Grzegorz Miecugow, Marcin Meller and Jacek Balkan), who conducted tests on various cars. From all three hosts, only Balkan had previous expierence as a motoring journalist.

The first posts about the show appeared on three different Polish online forums on October 15th, 2005, which suggests this day was the official premiere of the show . The show was criticised for its lack of humor, unsuitable choice of hosts and reusing tests conducted on Top Gear already. It was also suggested that the whole show was sponsored by Toyota, due to a very extensive test and high praise for Toyota Avensis. Other cars shown in the first episode are said to be Audi A6 Avant and Volkswagen Passat Variant.

It is currently unknown, how many episodes of the show were produced and broadcast, but according to the online forum of Ford Club Poland at least three episodes were shown. The last air date of the programme, that can be currently traced back, is dated on November 4th, 2005. The comments on this particular website actually refer to a Polish movie with the same title (Testosteron), but the film had its release date in 2007, which means the air date applies to the motoring magazine. So far only one still from the programme intro has resurfaced online, while other stills or recordings are considered to be lost. A post on a Polish Facebook group focusing on old and discontinued TV shows was posted on January 3rd, 2022, asking for any stills or recordings of the show, but no further information was provided by any of the group members.