This has been an ongoing topic on another forum, I thought I would see what people have to say over here.
and an update:
Adam Carolla, former host of The Man Show on Comedy Central and the Loveline radio show, confirmed this morning that he’s working on the U.S. version of Top Gear. It happened during a question and answer session with fans of his syndicated morning talk show based in Los Angeles. When asked about his upcoming network project, Carolla responded, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about it, but it’s a show out of England called Top Gear…If you like cars, you’ll like this show.” So there’s one host confirmed, any guesses who the other hosts might be?
eh, I dunno. Leno has tons of ties to GM. The best thing about top gear is how abusive they are to every car, they find something wrong with every single car they drive. So far in America all we have is programs that say best car ever, best car ever ever, best car evererer.
While I think its a great idea my instinct tells me this isn’t going to work well. If they make it like top gear they will fall short and constantly be compared to the original. They have a good idea, but should make it more their own, and it can’t be a sugar coated show about everything being great. Part of what makes Top Gear and Fifth Gear so good is that they criticize everything, they have strong biases and personalities that create a lot of the buzz surrounding the cars and the show itself. With control freaks like Lutz at GM, he will threaten to pull advertising if his cars get less then favorable reviews, he’s done it before. I just don’t think the American public, as a whole, is ready for a show like this, keep in mind enthusiasts make up a very small portion of the population.