You may or may not remember that Porsche shooting brake mule video that surfaced on TopGear.com in early July:

It was picked up by various websites, including Jalopnik. Well, turns out it was all a hoax as a sort of going away present from the TopGear.com American editorial staff before they got let go. Pretty damn good (but not perfect) hoax if you ask me.

You can read more about how they did it at the NY Times and Jalopnik.

Well done guys.

TopGear.com has a little guide on how getting tickets works. Even though the waiting list is years long, they use a lottery system to randomly give out tickets to people on the list, regardless of how long you’ve been waiting. More details and links to how to sign up can be found there.

TopGear.com’s US branch has finished their previously mentioned highly economic car. Did they meet their goal of 70 MPG? Find out over on TopGear.com by reading their write-up or by watching their video summary.

Bored at work? TopGear.com’s US portal has launched some Top Gear related games. Good way to kill time when you should be doing something else instead. ;)

The American branch of TopGear.com is currently converting a 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit Diesel into an eco-friendly car that will get 70 miles per gallon, do 0-60 in less than 7 seconds, and for a total cost of $7,000. Should be quite an interesting project. You can find the first article of what I assume will be many on their site.

It seems that the Telegraph was wrong in their recent article. TopGear.com has come out to officially reveal that the Stig is none of other than dead legendary racer Graham Hill! Turns out his death in the 1970’s was actually faked and he’s been hiding out in a bush ever since.

They also revealed that the chairman of crisis-hit Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Tom McKillop as well as Barack Obama have also taken turns portraying the Stig.

Most shocking of all though is a scandal that has surfaced in which Clarkson has been exposed as a big liar after claiming that the Stig had magnetic knees. Turns out it isn’t true according to a smart scientist. Shame on you Clarkson for lying to us all.

Andy Wilman, the executive producer of Top Gear, has blogged about this past year, FinalGear.com, and the budget cut facing them for 2009 and what they’re going to do about it.

[...] personally I think the Summer run was patchy – didn’t find its feet until the Shit Alfas film in show 3, but rocked from then on – I mean Japan, TG versus the Germans – quality stuff there. As for this just finished Autumn run, I was crapping myself going into it cos we only had eight weeks to prepare, but in the end I’m very happy with it.

I think Star in a Car found its feet again after the less than successful “Two at a Time” experiment. All it takes is good guests really, and people of Boris’s calibre are just that. So we’ll continue SIARPC in this vein for a while (probably should change the car though) and I know that will annoy some of the Final Gearheads, but lads, we can’t make all of this show for you, and whilst I am genuinely interested to know what a 19 year old Skyline fanatic in Oregon thinks of the Japan race, at the end of the day I’m not that bothered about his opinion on Harry Enfield.

Make sure to read the full article for the rest.

Those TopGear.com videos didn’t stay region free for too long — they’re blocked once again. However, there is a little trick you can use to get around the UK-only limiter.

Looks like the previous videos being made UK-only was either a fluke or all the complaints decided to make them not do it again. Either way, here’s three videos from 12×06 for you that are region free thanks to TopGear.com:

• News uncut
• Communist cars
• Ford Fiesta review

Thanks to everyone who sent in tips!

So it looks like Top Gear US won’t be coming to NBC. The US version of TopGear.com reports that the BBC has decided to take the show to cable.

We have a scoop on the much-anticipated U.S. version of “Top Gear”: BBC has decided to take the show to cable, where presenters’ funny mouths, from which often spill foul words, will be more at home. There are no hard feelings and NBC will be sharing custody of “Top Gear” dog. A number of cable networks were delighted with the news…

Personally I think this is great news because I had been worried that if the show didn’t get incredible ratings within it’s first few weeks, NBC would just cancel it. The pressure for high ratings is probably much less on cable networks and that will allow time for the show to grow into it’s own.

We’ll keep you updated.