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.

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.

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.

The American Top Gear already has two presenters — Adam Carolla and Tanner Foust. However, they still don’t have (or at least have announced) the third presenter.

So, for fun and maybe more (we already know Andy Wilman, the executive producer of Top Gear, reads our forums so I wouldn’t be surprised if some people at NBC are too), let’s speculate and suggest who should fill that third slot on the show.

If you’re interested, we have a thread going on our forums. So please, post your thoughts!

The Truth About Cars is saying that rally racer, drifter, and stunt driver Tanner Foust will be one of the hosts of the American Top Gear. If you were like me and had never heard of him before, watch this video of him hosting a show on SPEED.

They also are reporting that Dan Neil will no longer be involved with the American Top Gear.

But the big news here is that NBC execs pulled L.A. Times auto writer Dan Neil from the U.S. show after a viewing his audition tape — despite a signed contract with the Pulitzer prize-winning critic. Neil says he’s “very disappointed” with the network’s decision, but understands their motivation. “They couldn’t handle my heat,” he joked. “Seriously. It’s probably because I’m not very good on TV.”

In addition, the article addresses some of the concerns we’ve been having about advertisers.

Neil also reveals that NBC and the BBC are aware that aping the original Top Gear’s no-holds-barred reviewing style could piss off the media company’s automotive advertisers — and devised a solution. “They’re writing around the problem, by not doing car reviews unless they really love the car.”

I seriously hope that’s a joke because making fun of cars is one of the things that makes Top Gear great. Then again, we have to face the reality that the whole reason NBC exists is due to advertisers, so they aren’t exactly going to want to piss them off. So, I guess not reviewing the crap cars is better than no show at all.

Thanks to jnelcar for the tip.