Quiky and a few other forum members are currently in South Carolina for LeMons South in their Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor P71. Jalopnik, who has full coverage, managed to get a picture of our car and at least part of our team:

Wish them luck!

Fifth Gear will be back on August 11th. Details of what will be in the first episode of the new season are available on our forums.

We have quite a few forum members who got tickets to Saturday’s filming of Top Gear America. As a result, it was decided it’d be cool to meet up afterwards and go out to dinner or whatever.

Even if you didn’t get tickets to the filming, you are still welcome to go. So, if you’re in the LA area and are free this Saturday night, please check out and post in this thread on our forums. Details of the meet will be figured out there.

Gillian Anderson was on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last night and the subject of Top Gear came up. Turns out she’s a fan of the show as well and was actually invited to be the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, but couldn’t do it as she was pregnant.

Here’s a clip of the mention (about 3 minutes in):

Hopefully the mention got a couple more people curious about the show.

There was quite a bit of Top Gear discussion on Adam’s radio show this morning including Tanner Foust being a guest. Here’s a breakdown along with links to the podcasts for easy listening:

• How Say You? — Adam opens by talking about Tanner, how crazy us Top Gear fans are, how many fans don’t think he’ll do well hosting the show, and more. A caller also asks if there would be any aviation related material on Top Gear America like there kinda is on the UK version (races, etc.). Adam responds that yes there will be (hints at a race, possibly Los Angeles to Las Vegas) and talking about how awesome air racing is.
• Tanner Foust In Studio — Tanner talks about how he got his start and what his work as a stunt driver is like. There’s also talk of how they’re all doing on Top Gear.
• Christopher Titus In Studio Part 1 — Chris tells Adam how envious he is of Adam for being able to host Top Gear America and how hard he tried to get the job. There’s also talk of how crazy women race car drivers are as well as Chris and Adam’s times when they have gone driving on a track.
• Christopher Titus In Studio Part 2 — Some more Top Gear talk, but mostly this segment is talk about Chris’ bad divorce.
• Teresa Does The News — Nothing Top Gear related, it’s just the final Christopher Titus segment if you were interested in hearing the rest of him being in studio.

According to the website of On Camera Audiences, the company that handles the live audiences for many of NBC’s shows (source), Top Gear America will be the filming studio bits for the pilot on July 26th in Los Angeles. If you want to try and get tickets, make sure to head to their site to apply!

Thanks to nouseferaname90 for the tip!

Andy’s latest blog post came out this morning and besides talking about this coming Sunday’s episode, he made sure to correct all of the conspiracy nuts on our forums.

He starts by addressing the people who posted in our episode discussion thread for last Sunday’s episode complaining that the Diahatsu Terios’ exhaust sound was dubbed over with sounds from a V8:

Firstly, if the boys on Final Gear are reading this - WE DID NOT DUB A BLOODY V8 ON THE DAIHATSU TERIOS. Promise, chaps.

We like to do our best with the Jerry Bruckheimer noises, but we have our standards, and one of those standards is to not upset car dweebs - we like them too much.

I asked the director the same question about the engine when I saw the first cut of the film and he said you can hear the V8 camera car in the background, but the Terios still makes its own rorty little sound.

He also addresses the people who were concerned that we might be being weened off James May since there hasn’t been too much of him this season.

Secondly, if Final Gear boys are still tuned in, one of you wrote a couple of weeks ago that James hadn’t been in the series much, and that we therefore must be grooming the viewers for him leaving. Pleeeeeese. Go and put that fertile conspiracy theory brain of yours to better use. Find out if Kennedy was shot in Dallas, or during a faked moon landing.

I think you’re right, there’s not been enough James and Richard solo films this run - it’s a bit of a Rubik’s Cube putting a show together and that’s the way the cards have fallen. Hopefully we’ll sort it in the next series, but no, James isn’t going. He’ll go when he gets grumpy and fed up with the show, and to my memory he’s been grumpy and fed up with the show since the day he started.

He finishes by talking about this coming Sunday’s episode, but I’ll let you read the details of that for yourself to avoid spoilers.

Yes, sadly this Sunday’s Top Gear will be the last of the season. Details on the contents of the episode can be found on our forums as usual.

How fast will Stig get the Nissan GT-R around the Top Gear Test Track? Time to see for yourself.

Eric Stromer was on Adam Carolla’s radio show this morning. Before he left, Adam read off the guest usual promotional material when he mentioned Top Gear America will premiere “this fall”. I don’t know if this was some thing that a publicist made up or if it actually will premiere then though.

You can listen to him saying it 8 minutes into this podcast (previous segment here if interested).