Nobody mention the Corvette Stingray

If you spend an inordinate amount of time trawling the interweb pipes for stuff about cars (nope? just me then...) then you'll probably already know that the uber-successful Top Gear format has been sold off to foreign climes.

And yea there was a great wailing and knashing of teeth from the USA. For you see - enthusiastic american petrolheads are already enjoying Top Gear on the BBC World channel or some such and they like it just fine thanks. They like the sarcasm and they like Clarkson(!?) and they'll even put up with the odd slur on US iron. What they fear is an airbrushed bland-fest hosted by Jay Leno that is afraid to say anything that might upset automakers or big oil.

There is perhaps less of a chance of losing that informal blokeish quality when Top Gear goes into production in Oz.

TOP GEAR AUSTRALIA — HOSTS REVEALED After an Australia-wide call out, 4,000 DVD applications and months of interviews and screen tests, SBS and Freehand are pleased to announce the hosts for Top Gear Australia - Charlie Cox, Warren Brown, Steve Pizzati and of course, The Stig.

Charlie Cox you may already know as the sarcastic convict type who does the commentary on MotoGP for the Beeb. So no worries there then mate! It's unclear who's taking on Clarkson's mantle - they could have trouble finding a brash, outspoken reactionary racist in Australia so they may tweak the odd feature.

Star in a reasonably priced car. Well you've got a problem right there mate, Oz apparently only has three stars and they appear in every flamin' thing. This may have to become A Minogue in a Range Rover Vogue (there's bound to be enough extended family to make at least 3 series).

Cool Wall. Rating cool? From a hanger full of blokes in singlets wearing knee socks and boots sporting mullets? I don't think so either. Welcome to The Wall of Crikey! Pretty self explanatory cobber.

You can expect a race across the outback featuring Utes, hoonage and dodgy jokes about abo's any day soon. Three drink minimum.