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.

I don’t have the time to listen to all of Adam Carolla’s morning show these days, but luckily we have people on our forums who do and they’ve pointed out to me the following two recent segments from the show:

• Friday, March 21st: Adam talking about drifting in a BMW M5 out at El Toro
• Thursday, March 27th: Starting 10 minutes in, Adam talks about Star in a Reasonably Priced Car and Top Gear in general

Adam Carolla mentioned on Monday’s show (about 13:30 in) that he’s headed out to El Toro on Thursday to film some stuff for the show until 6 PM. If you live nearby, might be worth peering through the fence to see if you can see anything, hehe.

EDIT: Whoops, linked to the wrong MP3. Should be correct now.

If you’re having your doubts about Adam Carolla and his recent announcement about being involved with NBC’s Gear (presumably hosting it), then you should listen to this podcast of his radio show from last year.

He talks about a trip he took to watch the 24 Hours of Le Mans in person, the Paris airshow he attended, and lots of other things including a rant about American cops. Listening to this should put to ease any concerns you’re having about him hosting it. He is a bona fide car nut.

Props to sporteknik for finding the MP3.

Adam Carolla mentioned today on his morning radio show that he is going to be involved in the American version of Top Gear. This stemmed from a comment he made on yesterday’s show about his upcoming projects (just a tiny mention about 11:45 in).

You can listen to today’s segment where he semi-announces it via his podcast. He’s asked a question about his comment yesterday and answers it early in the show.

Personally, I thought for sure he wouldn’t be one of the hosts due to his morning show, but I was obviously proven wrong. He is going to be one busy, busy man soon with doing his radio show, Dancing with the Stars, and now Gear.

Discussion about this is taking place on our forums.

On Wednesday’s episode of The Adam Carolla Show, Adam mentioned that he decided to watch a Tivo’ed rerun episode of “Top Gear, a really cool car show outta England” rather than watching an episode of Dance War where it was announced that he was going to be on Dancing with the Stars.

If you’d like to listen, you can listen can download the segment. The relative part starts at around 12:45 and he actually mentions Top Gear around 13:45.

This is yet another example of Top Gear gaining awareness here in America. Hopefully it leads to more people hearing of our beloved show.