"Top Gear" On BBC America

It's been around in the UK for eight years, and now "Top Gear" is finally arriving in the US on BBC America. With any luck, we'll see a dramatic improvement in domestic car shows as they try to improve enough to match the humor, insight, and driving skills of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and the masked racer known only as The Stig.

What makes this show so great? Well they mix the usual car talk - testing the new Lamborghini Gallardo and racing luxury SUVs - with stunts like beating up used trucks to test their durability and getting celebrities to race family sedans, and really flogging the hell out of subcompacts in all kinds of torture tests. And then there's the funny news segments, which are something like a "Daily Show" for automotive enthusiasts.

Still, the central appeal is a raw, childlike fascination with very expensive cars. Check out this amazing clip where they take the 1001-horsepower Bugatti Veyron up to its 250+mph top speed: