Last week, before Eric Stromer was announced as the third host, a caller called into Adam’s show wanting an update on Top Gear. Discussion ensued about the third host having been picked, that they’d be reviewing supercars and such much like the British version, and so forth. However the surprising thing, to me at least, was Adam mentioning that NBC was actually going to be allowing them to praise or more importantly criticize cars as they saw fit. Many people, including me, were worried that since NBC was advertiser supported, there would be resistance to criticizing cars that could be potential advertisers. Luckily it seems that NBC is smart enough to realize that the only way Top Gear America can succeed is if the hosts are allowed to say their true feelings and aren’t on a leash. This is very, very good news.

If you’re interested in listening to the actual call, you can download it (14:45 in), although there’s not much that happened that I didn’t cover above.