Top Gear power slides into American homes.

Popular British telly program “Top Gear” is finally being shown on BBC America, after two years of petitions from American fans.

The show, which features British celebrities Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, features regular auto reviews, celebrity interviews, and various stunts that are both humorous and entertaining.

The programme does not feature many, if any, American automobiles. Instead, reviews and stunts focus on a wide array of cars not available in the United States, which led the BBC to declare that a U.S. audience would not be interested in Top Gear.

Popular Bit Torrent download sites, however, told a different story. Each week, as a new episode was aired in Britain, a recorded version was downloaded online by a large number of American fans. This fact was cited as proof of the programme’s American viability in several online petitions, sent to the BBC over a period of about two years.

For some time, there was talk of an “Americanized” Top Gear, originally slated to feature American cars and American hosts, but later offered to existing British host Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson, however, declined, an unsurprising move considering his normal anti-American sentiment on the programme, another reason for the BBC’s apprehensiveness for showing Top Gear in the States.

The programme coincides with a monthly magazine of the same name, featuring columns by Clarkson and May and a full index of auto reviews in every issue. Together, the TV programme and the magazine form the largest automotive-related brand in the world (car manufacturers excluded). Figures for the readership and viewership combined of the magazine and programme, respectively, have been estimated at nearly 500 million people, far exceeding any American automotive publications, including the seemingly popular “Car and Driver” and “Road and Track.”

Top Gear has been shown in the United States before, on the Discovery Channel, but never in its entirety. Three episodes in total have been shown, but in truth they are nothing more than a mix of the few automotive reviews and stunts featuring cars available in America, coupled with new footage of Clarkson in the studio shot exclusively for Discovery Communications.

Fans of the show claim that the “watered down” Top Gear loses almost all of its charm, with the British celebrity interviews and strictly European cars removed. While the cars are not known in the U.S., nor the celebrities, fans insist that seeing people and things that aren’t in America is one of the programme’s main draws in the United States— the ability to see what “petrolheads” are like on the other side of the pond.

As the show prepares to enter its tenth season in Britain, the BBC has finally decided to air Top Gear on its American outlet station, BBC America. Instead of showing Season 10, however, as in Britain, BBC America will be showing Season 8 on Mondays at 8 and 9pm nationally, presumably to test the American response before showing more recent material. In spite of the older episodes, fans are rejoicing, as episodes are shown in their entirety, complete with American-unknown celebrity interviews.

To ensure their best chances at success with Top Gear in America, the BBC has also included an illustrated and narrated disclaimer before every episode:

“Even British people can’t understand the British accent all the time. To ensure the best understanding of what you’re about to see, you may want to enable Closed Captioning on your television set.”