More Top Gear discussion occurred this morning on Adam Carolla’s radio show and he confirmed as many of us here suspected — the American version of Top Gear is still alive and well and searching for a third host. As a matter of fact, Xzibit (yes, of Pimp My Ride) as well as Eric Stromer, Chris Williams (Vanessa Williams’ brother), and many other guys were auditioning for the job yesterday.

For more details, you can listen to the whole segment of the show right here.

SBS has posted the videos the winning hosts submitted for the hosting competition. Assuming SBS has some good producers that come up with quality content for these hosts to present, I’m highly hopeful for this edition of Top Gear.

SBS has posted in-depth bios of the new hosts of Top Gear Australia — Charlie Cox, Warren Brown, and Steve Pizzati. They’re worth checking out if you’re interested in the show or the hosts.

The Australian version of Top Gear now has it’s hosts — Motorsport commentator Charlie Cox, cartoonist Warren Brown and driving instructor Steve Pizzati.

Currently a motorsport commentator for the BBC, Cox, 47, is known for his classic one-liners.

He worked in radio in Sydney in the 1980s before moving to the UK where he won several motor racing titles in the 1990s and was involved in a near life-ending crash in 1995.

Brown, in his mid-40s, is best known for his work as a cartoonist and motoring columnist for The Daily Telegraph, but also has a passion for historic cars.

The third host, Steve Pizzati, is the youngest of the bunch, in his mid 30s.

He is an advanced driving instructor, freelance motoring journalist and a race driver for Porsche Australia.

Sydney Morning Herald motoring editor Josh Dowling will act as the motor industry consultant.

So what do you think of their choices for hosts? Leave your comments here.

[Source: NEWS.com.au]

Thanks to tone76 and evan_a for the tips!

If you’re interested in finding out the method of transport for Richard and James as well as the car that Jeremy will probably be driving, check out this post on our forums. I’m purposely not posting the details here for those wishing to avoid spoilers.

I say “probably” because they were wrong last time.

The sources this time are Applausestore.com, the site that handles the free tickets for Top Gear (they have been contacting people for the filming shortly before the 22nd), and the Dutch Top Gear Magazine website. Neither are probably as reliable as an actual TV schedule from the BBC, but I’m pretty convinced June 22nd is the date.

I’ve updated the counter at the top of the site to reflect the new probable date.

Contrary to what various automotive websites are reporting, no Tim Schrick of Germany’s D-Motor is not one of the multiple people (yes, there is more than one) who are or have played the Stig. Besides his white racing suit being a different type, he was in Belgium (along with Sabine) for a Top Gear versus D-Motor competition as mentioned by Andy Wilman earlier.

Image by stupid_noob from 9lives, captions by smokyburnout from Jalopnik comments section.

A new post by Andy Wilman, executive producer of Top Gear, has been put up (and as of the time of this post, apparently been taken back down) on the Top Gear blog about season 11 and what it will contain.

The post is a must read, but here’s some highlights about the upcoming season with links I’ve added to threads on our forums about the subjects:

Most exciting for me is that we’ve finally come up with another big race - you know, car versus something or other.

The last time we did one was a couple of years ago, with the plane against the Veyron, and in hindsight we lost the plot in that one - too pompous, too overblown and preposterous, too much work on the scripting to make it funny. This one is back to basics, more hardcore, mega car, mega opponent, with a solid premise. And a clue for the geeks: we did it in Japan.

Elsewhere, we’ve tackled rural issues such as the fox hunting ban and fascist ramblers. With the ingenious use of cars, we go to war, literally, with a German version of Top Gear (which incidentally means Sabine is back) and there’s a very exciting shootout with the RS6 against the most suicidal of skiers.

Jeremy also reckons he has an ingenious plan for improving British police cars, so we’ll be testing that theory, and we’ve always said you can’t be a true petrolhead until you’ve owned an Alfa, so now it’s time to put our money where our mouth is.

There’s some good metal too - new Evo X against the Impreza, CLK Black and hopefully the Mazda Furai. Overall though, the other thing we’re going to do is try and speed up a bit.

I can’t wait.

Just a heads up — Fifth Gear had previously said they’d be back in July, but their website is now saying they’ll be back in August instead.

NBC has a page up on their site for the American Top Gear and on it, the show is referred to “Top Gear”. It’s not definite proof though (not even close) that the show will be named the same as it’s British cousin as the page is just a temporary placeholder and is at least a week old (probably much older), but it’s still interesting.