In the past 3 months there has been quite a bit of hemming and hawing about if there was going to be a NBC Top Gear, who are going to be the hosts, then back to no show, then if Jay Leno would be a possible host when he left the Tonight Show, then when he said he wouldn’t, how even he admitted that the show could be lame. For those of us who really care about Top Gear, it was a bit of an emotional roller-coaster. Now that we know the show will be around NBC in the coming months and the fact that Adam Carolla, Eric Strommer and Tanner Foust, we’re starting to get more details about the show strait from Carolla’s mouth. According to Carolla:

• The NBC adaptation will follow the BBC format: guest segment, stunt, test drive and, yes, the Stig (casting for that crucial role is still pending).

• The premiere episode will feature a race from Las Vegas to San Francisco, ending in a “mammoth stunt.” (NBC isn’t insisting on copycat stunts or episodes, a la Season One of The Office.)

• Carolla is pushing for an on-air drive of the just-unveiled BMW M1 Homage concept as soon as it’s available, as well as the Aston Martin DBS (though that would be a reprisal of a Clarkson drive).

• Clarkson and Carolla recently met face-to-face, but Carolla promises to focus more on improv than the heavily-prepared Clarkson.

• Officials from Top Gear in England, who are producing the show, along with “everyone involved,” have assured Carolla that he will be able to speak his mind on any car “without fear of reprisal” from advertisers, which he fully plans to do.”

The format looks great, as it’s based on the UK version. However, the unique content is really great to hear. At the very least, even if the show doesn’t live up to the UK version, at least we’ll have some unique shows that aren’t just a carbon copy of what Jeremy Clarkson and the rest of the British team has done.

Source: Popular Mechanics

For those of you who watch Top Gear (perhaps the single most watched TV show around the world), the seasons seem to sporadically come and go due to the creative nature of the television show and the fact that the producers and hosts don’t want to water the show down by “just getting episodes made and shipped out”. So, though it’s been quite a few months, the first episode of Season 11 aired yesterday on BBC television. If you don’t live where the BBC are all your primary channels, there are various sites on the internet (YouTube) to view the episodes.

As for a quick rundown of the episode, the most notable bits were filling up half a dozen super cars (Audi R8, Aston Vanquish, and a few others) with a gallon of gas and racing to see who was the most fuel efficient. Another race between a new BMW M3 and a Toyota Prius showed the M3 to be a more efficient vehicle when driven around a track at the same speeds. The 3 hosts were tasked with creating a “better, cheaper” police car for the average bobby and a few other standard bits rounded the episode out with a strong, albeit lacking first episode. The preview of this season did show some particularly exciting episodes which should be on par with previous seasons.

Source: FinalGear