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New BBC Top Gear season is off to a great start

The past few years have been very demanding for Top Gear fans. The Jeremy Clarkson Top Gear got too big for itself, and the core quality of the series degraded as stunts and jokes gradually became more and more stale. Things came to a head with the Fracasgate, with Clarkson punching a producer in a very nice hotel in Yorkshire with a very nice brass plaque commemorating "The End of Clarkson's BBC Career". Fast forward to a year ago, when the BBC produced a new series of Top Gear, with famed breakfast show person and shouting enthusiast Chris Evans hosting. Laden with personnel and curiously lacking any direction, the first new season collapsed onto itself with Evans eventually quitting the entire shindig. After that, viewers received a new, Amazon-produced Clarkson-Hammond-May series called The Grand Tour, which was often brilliant and just as often hampered by writing as hackneyed as the last Clarkson years of Top Gear. Now the slate is clean. Evans is gone. The first Grand Tour season has aired. The BBC has had a good long time to re-evaluate its strategy. And the first episode of this season's Top Gear has aired in the UK - and will air March 12 on BBC America. Your first extended look at all new #TopGear, coming 5 March. See you there pic.twitter.com/lYoYOtrWxR — Top Gear (@BBC_TopGear) February 23, 2017 What an improvement! It seems like the producers have taken an ax to everything not strictly necessary for making a great car show, and they've left what is absolutely crucial. There are the three car guys, Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris and Rory Reid. There is a new studio. There is a new track car. There is a celebrity, but it's not painful to watch. There are easy jokes, there are car jokes, there are Ronin jokes. Ronin jokes! It's as if Harris, by dissecting continuity errors in the 1998 film's BMW chase, is reaching out to us fans, saying he's one of us, and he did notice the wrong wheels when the black BMW falls from the bridge. (Other mistakes are wrong-colored tach needles, for instance.) The first car film is a quality Ferrari FXX K piece, with Harris enjoying one of the 40 built track-day specials on the bankings of Daytona. It's remarkable it was Harris who was allowed to drive the exclusive Ferrari, as the first "outsider" (in his words) to drive one; years ago Harris was one of the most vocal critics of Ferrari's practices, resulting in him getting banned from driving press Ferraris. But then again, this is a customer car.

Ferrari introduces trick new augmented reality showroom

Augmented reality is darn cool, giving us a new and highly informative way to look at everyday scenes. We've seen a number of automakers play around with it, from Mini's AR goggles to Land Rover's information-intensive windshield. But while those are merely concepts, Ferrari is bringing augmented reality to the showroom. Literally. The company commissioned an app that uses 3D tracking technology to display a seven-step walkaround program that overlays information on one of the company's products. Want to see different wheel designs? How the air flows over the car's body? Or easily transmit your idea of the perfect Ferrari to friends and family? The app can do it all. It's a seriously impressive piece of technology, and one we could see moving well beyond the Ferrari showroom. Check out the iPad app in the video and let us know what you think of Ferrari's latest sales tool.

Fangio's Ferrari sells for $28 million in New York [w/videos]

See this Ferrari? It just set the record as the most valuable automobile sold at auction this year. It's a 1956 Ferrari 290 MM driven by the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio, and it sold last weekend in New York for an astonishing $28.05 million. The speedster was built for Fangio to drive in the 1956 Mille Miglia – the last time the Argentinian would enter the race, which was shut down as a competitive event the following year. But before chassis number 0626 was retired, it was driven by such legends as Phil Hill, Alfonso de Portago, and Wolfgang von Trips. Ferrari only made four examples, and between its provenance and its pristine condition – it never crashed – this 290 managed to exceed its pre-sale estimate. In the process, 0626 powered its way into the record books as the most expensive car sold at auction in 2015, the most valuable that RM has ever handled, and the highest price ever paid for a vehicle in New York City. In fact the only cars ever sold at auction for more than this one were another Ferrari (the 250 GTO that Bonhams sold last year for $35 million) and another of Fangio's racers (the Mercedes W196 also sold by Bonhams for $29.6 million in 2013). Though Fangio's Ferrari was far and away the top lot of the day, it wasn't the only multi-million-dollar automobile sold as part of RM Sotheby's Driven by Disruption auction. A 1962 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato set a new record for British automobiles at $14.3 million. A Ferrari 250 GT Series I Cabriolet sold for $5.7 million, a Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow went for $3.7 million, and another Ferrari 250 Europa sold for $3.3 million – as did Floyd Mayweather's Enzo. A '72 Lamborghini Miura SV fetched $2.4 million, and Janis Joplin's Porsche 356 set a new record for its type and well exceeded expectations at $1.7 million. All told, the event generated a massive $73.5 million in sales, of which the Fangio Ferrari alone accounted for over a third. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.