Top Gear Australia

From FinalGear.com Wiki

Top Gear Australia was the first international version of Top Gear, first announced by SBS in late 2007 and is a co-production between SBS and Freehand, an Australian-based production company that is partially owned by BBC Worldwide. The original hosts, Charlie Cox, Warren Brown and Steve Pizzati were selected after an open casting call in early 2008 that attracted over 4,000 applications from across Australia.

Series 1 debuted on SBS on 29 September 2008 with much fanfare, however reception was lukewarm at best. From a debut attracting over 900,000 viewers, ratings dropped dramatically, averaging around 600,000 viewers per episode, and Series 2 was announced off the back of these figures. Despite the large drop in ratings, Top Gear Australia is SBS's highest rated Australian produced show. To put this in perspective, episodes of Top Gear shown on SBS attract ratings of up to 1,000,000 viewers every week.

Charlie Cox resigned as host during the break between Series 1 and Series 2, with high-profile jazz trumpeter James Morrison joining the Top Gear Australia team for Series 2. Ratings for Series 2 averaged around 500,000-600,000 viewers per week.

It is not known if SBS has commissioned Series 3 at this stage.

[edit] Episode Guides

A full listing of episodes is available on the Top Gear Australia Episode Guides page.

[edit] Power Laps

In the Power Laps segment, the Stig completes a lap around the Top Gear Australia test track to gauge the performance of various cars.