Video: Top Gear USA sneak peek

By George Skentzos | September 03rd, 2010

With the first season of Top Gear USA nearing its small screen debut, the History Channel – which has picked up the show – has released a sneak peak into one of the films featuring the finest thoroughbreds from the Lamborghini stable.

While the production values are certainly top notch, the crux of the Top Gear franchise has always been the chemistry between the hosts – in this case Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust and Rutledge Wood.

The line-up shows promise, mixing the comedic talent of Ferrara, the drifting talent of Foust and the chubby, bearded face of Wood – but one thing these spin-offs will always lack is Clarkson.

Can a Top Gear franchise succeed without Clarkson?

Mitch

No
Rhubarb

Yes a Top Gear franchise can succeed without Clarkson. There just needs to be a good relationship between the 3 hoss.

Top Gear UK isn’t funny just because of Clarkson, its the 3 of them 2gether that makes it funny.

Top Gear OZ was crap in my opinion because they didn’t get the right hosts.

Is there any word when Top Gear US is airing???
http://baji192.wordpress.com Baji

Awesome cars, stunning camera work, and a noticeable american feel about the visuals. But it seems far to dry.

Top Gear UK works so well because of the chemistry between the 3 hosts and the fact that they are genuinely funny guys with 3 distinctively different personalities.

The US hosts seem too similar and arent very funny at all. But i’d have to see more than just a clip to make up my mind completely.

Rhubarb

Well put Baji. I totally agree with what you say
smokin’R32

True, however top gear UK has had 15 seasons to refine their humour and get comfortable with each other. If you go back to the early episodes there was definitely some of that same awkwardness. Maybe with time these guys will develop their own style of humour, the production values certainly look up to spec

Sam

already looks a hundred times better than TGA. dunno bout the fatso but. TG UK had a fat guy at the start and we all know how that ended up…
Joker

A Couple of reasons this will probably succeed more than TG Australia.
The U.S have a bigger pool of talent to pick hosts from.
-They have the BUDGET to do this.
-The cars are cheaper there, there’s more of them
-Americans that don’t necessarily come from a TV background, are more natural on camera for some reason.
-They will have access to no end of test tracks and a huge variation of scenery to shoot from.

If they get the combination right with the presenters and keep it smart and sharp, they will have a winner.

http://www.caradvice.com.au George Skentzos

Totally agree with all the points you make, especially the last one.
GooSE

Also the US has a large auto industry, so where TG UK focuses on european cars mostly, TG US will be able to report on a whole range of cars that havent already been tested by clarkson. Aus falls short here as we only have the falcon and commodore to differentiate our show from the rest of the world

Ben Terry

From that short clip I can already tell that the rapport between the three US hosts is better than TG Australia.
Duckula

TopGear is Clarkson and vice versa – if it doesnt have him, its not TopGear – not saying it or he is the be all and end all.. its just you cant have one without the other… Its like happy days without Fonzy or Dr Who without a TARDIS. I mean its good that they are trying to bring more car shows to TV, thats never a bad thing – I mean for gods sake I even watch 5th Gear…
asdf

oh no…not another spinoff of the original
StuntinWithThaDoo’sOpen

Don’t really care who hosts I just watch for the cars

Andrew

I agree! In fact I am not a huge fan of the original TG precisely because its focus seems to be the hosts rather than cars. It’s great the guys are having fun but at the end of the day it’s the cars I want to see. Cutesy antics of the hosts were fine as the icing on the cake, but it seems they’ve become the main course.
So yes, bring on this American version – I might actually enjoy it more.

MW

It has a hollywood-american feel to it. Could be interesting.
Neil M

There needs to be a wider age gap between the hosts. You need the cranky old man, and the young upstart. The three hosts just blend together into the 30something polo shirt wearing – yawn…..
Moey

It’s going to fail like Top Gear Australia although I drooled and wet myself over the lambos XD, leave Top Gear for the poms just call your show something else like 6th gear or something, last thing clarkson wants would be an American top gear

Des

If the Yanks were going to call it anything it would be D or Drive. They dont know what a manual g’box is.
Also are they going to have FAT American Stig in it.

TomJ

The show needs an internal purpose. The thing with Top Gear Australia is we never really felt why we had the show, all that we saw was a cash grabbing exercise.