Popular Mechanics sat down with Adam for the first interview since Top Gear America was officially announced and asked him a bunch of interesting questions about the show.

The full interview can be found on their website (and it’s really worth a read), but here’s the CliffsNotes copy/pasted from the article:

• 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.

Again, make sure to check out the full interview. It’s not too long of a read and is pretty interesting.

Thanks Tyler for the tip!

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.

Eric Stromer, the third host of Top Gear America, was on Adam Carolla’s radio show this morning and they talked in length about Top Gear. If you’d like to listen to the segment (you really should, it’s quite funny), you can download it here.

Eric Stromer, a frequent guest on Adam Carolla’s radio show, host of the HGTV show “Over Your Head,” and overall construction guru will be the third host of the American version of Top Gear. Production of the show will start later this week.

Story via BBC press release, photo via Jalopnik.

Read the full press release »

On Thursday’s show, Adam started his radio show by going off on a long car discussion covering his taste in cars. If you have 10 minutes or so and are interested in the American Top Gear, then it’s worth a listen.

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.

Autoblog, Jalopnik, and many other automotive websites have been noting that the American version of Top Gear is missing from NBC’s fall lineup and therefore are declaring the show dead and canceled. Besides the fact that we posted the same thing over a month ago, it’s probably incorrect.

The much more plausible explanation is that the NBC executives are merely waiting to see how the pilot turns out which to the best of my knowledge hasn’t even been filmed yet. Gear may end up being a mid-season replacement for any show that gets canceled this fall or it may end up being a show for next summer.

Either way, if I were you the reader, I wouldn’t place your bets on this show being dead until we actually hear exactly that. Not having it show up on the fall schedule isn’t proof. Plus if it had been canceled, don’t you think we would have heard something from Adam and his big mouth already? He wasn’t even supposed to mention that he was to be hosting the show and he did anyway, so I’m sure he would have mentioned if the show was canceled and he knew about it.

The following video is from SPEED’s video podcast and features a little bit of Adam Carolla behind the wheel of the new Pontiac G8. It’s rather short and features horrible music, but it’s a decent look at what Adam might be like on Gear and his skills at being funny on the fly.

Thanks to Christian for the tip.

UPDATE: Someone uploaded some of the actual show to YouTube. It’s really poor quality (cam of a TV it looks like), but it has a lot more of Adam.

You can now download the podcast of what I mentioned earlier today. In it, Adam Carolla talks about how they aim to make Gear (aka Top Gear US) exactly the same as Top Gear UK since the UK version already has all of the bugs worked out. Fast forward to 11 or 12 minutes in if you’re in a hurry.

The more we’ve been discussing it on the forums, the more I’ve come to realize that yesterday’s post was probably way off the target.

The most likely reason for no sign of Gear on this fall’s schedule is that NBC is waiting to see how the yet to be filmed pilot will turn out before giving it the red or green light.

This is further supported by the fact that Adam Carolla just moments ago talked more about the show and how it will compare to the UK version (basically, he said they’re aiming for it to be exactly the same, just with American hosts).

So, love it or hate it (although you really should wait to see it before making an opinion on it), it’s not dead, at least for now.