TopGear.com news - 2008

Welcome to new TopGear.com. Take a poke around and see what you think. We’re calling this the 'beta' version of our new site because it's so vast we don't expect to get it right first time. We'll need your help as we fettle things over the coming months - some pages we'll change completely, some we'll just polish - but read on and we'll tell you how you can help.

We have been, in true Top Gear style, extremely ambitious about our new site; nearly 300 new videos in a bright, big player; a whole raft of new blogs with regular contributions from Jeremy, James and Richard, as well as our own magazine team of Jason Barlow, Paul Horrell, Tom Ford, Jamie Kitman, Matt Master and others; and a superlative index of every car on sale in the UK with some extremely cute tools that will actively help you choose your next car, or, if you're just having fun, will tell you whether you're better suited to a Ferrari or a Lamborghini.

We hope once we've got all our new toys out of the box we'll have not only the best Top Gear site in the world, but the best car choosing site too. As we said, ambitious.

A word about out blogs. We're grouping them together under subjects rather than by writer and we've given them all names.

'Horsepower' is where you'll find regular contributions from Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. You'll be able to respond to what they say and, if what you write is interesting enough, they'll respond to you.

'Transmission' is where you can read all about what's going on the TV show; Andy Wilman, the show's exec producer and Top Gear's official 'Fifth Beatle', is signed up to lead this one.

'The Foreman' is where you'll go to read Paul Horrell and Jamie Kitman telling you everything the car makers would rather you didn't know.

'The Cupholder' is fronted by Tom Ford, and is full of pure trivia: videos, links and a general trawl from all over the world and all over the world wide web.

Finally there's 'Fast and Dangerous' - that's where we’ll keep you up to date on all racing outside of F1 and ensure that, come a Monday morning, you have access to links to all the best of the weekend's action.

'Sunday Afternoon Club', featuring BBC Five Live's F1 commentator Maurice Hamilton, remains our F1 blog. For now. We have big plans for that when the BBC takes over the F1 coverage next year.

'Car Chooser' is our other new brand. It's been insanely complicated to build and only with your input will we iron out all the bugs, so please write to us and tell us about your experiences. Our aim is to genuinely open up your eyes to less obvious choices when it comes to choosing a car. It's fun. Have a play.

There's much, much more to come so please bear with us. You'll soon be able to review your own cars, create your own groups, rate episodes of the TV show and get in touch with folks who share your passion for Top Gear and cars and generally enjoying both.

So have a look around and bear with us as we develop TopGear.com. It's going to be great.

Email us at tgweb@bbc.co.uk with your comments. Please.