Top Gear rocks! And I don't want to know who the Stig is.

The Stig??

Maybe all these websites reporting the ruling shouldn't use the Stig's name in the headline.

Love this show. I wish I could get more episodes on Netflix, but I can understand why they don't put the whole thing on.
It makes me angry that Harper Collins is trying to let out the identity of the Stig. The mystique of the Stig is one of the greatest things about the show. Am I curious about who the Stig is? Of course. But that's the point. If someone comes up and tells me, then the curiosity and the magic is gone.
And I really don't think a USA Top Gear would be nearly as good as the British version.

Yeah, I thought it weird they were talking about an Autobiography of someone who agreed to not share his secret identity, and that article paints the Stig as if he isn't the one writing it. Last time I checked, an Autobiography is a bigraphy penned by the subject.

I think a Top Gear USA won't be good because they're going to get 3 bromance hosts who don't know squat about cars (May, Hammond and Clarkson are all long-time automotive journalists) and the show is just going to be ads on top of product placement. I used to watch a bunch of the car shows they aired back when Spike was called TNN. They started out as good shows for car nuts and then just became 30 minute infomercials with about 5 minutes of actual content. Given the way US networks operate right now, I can't see Top Gear USA being much better than that.

There used to be an American Top Gear, with Adam Corolla, but NBC canned it due to Knight Rider's poor ratings. LEave it to NBC to compare a "documentary" format car review show to a fictional, low-budget sci-fi 80s re-hash and think they're in the same boat.

Apparently the History Channel is picking it up, with Adam Ferarra in stead of Corolla. Should be interesting, at least. From the trailer I saw, they drove 3 Lamborghinis in a straight line. Uh, maybe it won't be very interesting...

Concerning the Stig-- there shouldn't have been such a big uproar over it anyway. It was even in his contract, from what I understood, that the moment he reveals his true identity he is no longer the Stig (ie, his contract is terminated). As long as the show kills him off in a similar fashion to the end of the Black Stig, I'll be fine with it.

I love Top Gear. I know each episode I watch I'm going to laugh out load and probably several times. Also I don't want to know who the Stig is.

I'm assuming there'll be a new Stig, since that's part of the whole mystique-- no one is supposed to know, and the last time the Stig revealed himself, they killed him off in the TV show and introduced a new one.

Michael Schumacher revealed himself as the Stig, but that was only because they did a review of his personal Ferarri FXX car, and no one drives that but Schumacher himself. It was a joke to counter the speculation of a possible reveal of the Stig in 2009.

(That's from a year ago)

I can't see the lawyers and insurance companies letting them get away with the kind of insane stunts they get up to on the UK version.

The amount of safety precautions on even a very mild Mythbusters experiment is ramped up to ludicrous levels here. They're not going to let the stars of a U.S. show engage in, say, motorhome derbies or homemade amphibious vehicle competitions (at least, not without having so many safeties in place that it would be pretty dull). Even the parkour race or the South American episode would probably be out of the question.

Fine I suppose. It's been all over so many news sites (not even car related), I figured it couldn't have been that easily avoided.

In your post, you said it was a publisher that wanted to out him, which isn't exactly true. He outed himself on a couple of different occasions.

Here's a piece on how the US show is shaping up.

Personally, I don't want a US version of Top Gear. Clarkson's wit is one of the main reasons I tune into it (and his inability to purchase a functioning car on any of the challenges).

ah gotcha, oh question for everyone, my GF loves this show and has seen every episode they air on the BBC America channel, but that's not nearly enough for her, where can one go to stream/purchase the more recent seasons, presumably the older seasons would feature cars that are no longer so hot to trot as the saying goes.

Indeed, if you go read the front page article My Own Private Bolivia, you may find some shocking information that will not help you in any way, but alludes to the same thing.