SBS's Top Gear Australia officially started its engine last night and moved steadily off the grid, out-rating Australian Story (ABC) but finishing behind Australian Idol (10) and Two and a Half Men (Nine).
A peak of 303,000 viewers across the country watched as a new trio of Australian hosts drove across sand dunes, snowfields, air strips and into shark-infested waters.
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While the format was faithful to the original program, which draws an audience of up to one million for SBS, the terrain was a world away from the English county of Surrey where the BBC series is filmed.
"Welcome to Top Gear Australia, a show made in Australia for Australians, right here in God's own," host Charlie Cox said, opening the program on a replica set of the UK studio.
The former motor racing commentator said he had been "having a ball" testing soft-roaders at the beach and in the snow with co-hosts Warren Brown, a cartoonist, and Steve Pizzati, a race driver.
The original Top Gear, presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, has an estimated 385 million viewers worldwide and has ignited controversy for several incidents including damaging a historic tree, tying a dead cow to a car and a near fatal accident involving Hammond.
The Australian version followed the British format with a segment featuring mystery racer The Stig, a news discussion, road tests and a celebrity time trial.
Last night's guest star, actor Vince Colosimo, confessed to having 14 accidents before he was 25 years old but avoided adding to the list of Top Gear bingles.
Despite his form, the Underbelly actor safely piloted his Proton Satria around a modified airfield in respectable time.
In stunt that would have been impossible in Europe, Brown was lowered into the sea off South Australia's Neptune Islands in a Mini Moke while great white sharks circled, lured with tuna and a leg of lamb.
"No doubt who has the right of way," Brown quipped as a shark crashed into the custom-built cage around the Moke.
Last night's news discussion was also given an Australian slant as Cox and team criticised the luxury car tax increase.
"The motorists get slugged again," Cox said, asking why there was no tax on owning expensive cats.
True to traditional Top Gear form, a range of sports cars were tested on the track including the Lotus Elise, Nissan GTR, Porsche 911 PDK — which "puts the mental in environmental" — and a stretch Hummer.
The GTR blitzed the line-up while the stretch Hummer finished last alongside a taxiing Cessna.
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