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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.

Toyota FCV puts hydrogen fuel cell twist on ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

You've probably seen your fair share of Ice Bucket Challenge videos online this week, which are meant to raise money to fight amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often called "Lou Gehrig's Disease." Hopefully, you've seen ours. We've watched a lot of these videos, but haven't seen one that makes an alt-fuel point quite like a new video from Toyota. Julie Hamp, the CCO of Toyota North America, lost a sister-in-law to ALS last year, so for her the cause is personal. Instead of just dumping icy-cold water on her head, Hamp uses water from the FCV fuel cell vehicle parked next to her. Because, of course, a hydrogen fuel cell car emits nothing but water vapor. Toyota didn't run a lot of hydrogen through the car to collect water, it just got enough to top off the ice bucket. Using the water emissions from a hydrogen vehicle in a creative way is not a new trick. Two years ago, the California Fuel Cell Partnership made the point that you can drink the emissions (just like Mercedes-Benz did earlier this year), but admitted that "fuel cells produce about the same amount of water as gasoline vehicle – about 1/3 cup for a full day of driving." Still, for a good cause, we'll accept the mix of tap water and "emissions." Check out the video below, if you haven't had enough already. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Toyota announces GT86 CS-R3 rally car

Toyota Motorsport GmbH has developed cars for all manner of racing, up to and including Formula One and Le Mans. But it got its start back in 1979 in rally competition, winning four drivers' and three manufacturers' titles in the World Rally Championship. And now it's announced a new rally car.
Based on the Toyota GT86 (better known to us as the Scion FR-S), the CS-R3 rally car isn't built to contest the top tier of the WRC, but is being developed to conform to the lower R3 class. That means a six-speed sequential gearbox, limited slip differential and upgraded engine, brakes, aero... the works. It'll retain the road-going model's rear-drive setup, joining the front-drive Yaris R1A in TMG's portfolio of customer rally cars.
Further details are set to be revealed "in the coming months", but the GT86 CS-R3 will benefit from the experience TMG accrued in developing the GT86 CS-V3 (pictured above) for the Nürburgring-based VLN endurance racing series.