Nellie Andreeva

EXCLUSIVE: Start your engines:  History has greenlit a second season of Top Gear. The U.S. adaptation of the iconic BBC car series premiered in November and has averaged the youngest audience ever for a series on History.

Production on the second season of Top Gear, from BBC Worldwide Prods., will begin in the spring. Returning as co-hosts are comedian Adam Ferrara, champion rally and drift racer Tanner Foust and racing analyst Rutledge Wood.  John Hesling is executive producing the series, which features extreme stunts and challenges, car reviews and celebrity interviews, along with History’s Russ McCarroll.

The U.S. version has gotten the seal of approval from Jeremy Clarkson, host of the UK Top Gear. Clarkson said he and fellow co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May were initially “anxious” about passing the show on to their US counterparts. “We needn’t have worried because Top Gear is clearly in safe hands, even if they do insist on speaking in those stupid accents,” Clarkson said. “Watching an episode from series 1 with Richard and James, we found ourselves in a genuinely heated debate about which of the presenters’ cars was best. We were just three ordinary chaps watching a car show and loving it, which is exactly what Top Gear should be. Bring on series 2.”

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