Here at Jalopnik we spent years crapping on car television for being generally awful. That’s because deep down, we always thought we could maybe do it better. Strap yourself in, because you’re about to watch our first attempt at doing exactly that: Car vs. America.
What goodness was missing from car shows? Well, besides hosts who actually seemed like actual humans who’ve met each other at least once before, culture. Stories of the everyday people making modern car culture happen.
We sent editors Mike Ballaban and Raphael Orlove on the road to find that car culture. In the inaugural episode they head to North Carolina to go skidplate racing—a wonderfully disastrous and terrible idea that involves taking the back wheels off a car and replacing them with metal plates to slide around a track.
You should watch the episode. We want to hear what you think. We want to know what’s good and what can be better.
Next week, the guys (and Kristen Lee and myself) explore what it takes to be a car enthusiast in New York City, probably the worst place to own a car in America. And we’ll race across the city in our own Yugo and Volkswagen Beetle, to once and for all determine which totalitarian government could make the best people’s car.
Car vs. America airs on Fusion every Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET and PT. Find out if you have Fusion here, and check out how to get the Watch Fusion app on Amazon Fire TV & Stick, Apple TV, Roku, Chromecast, iPhone, iPad, Android Mobile, Android tablets and more. Fusion’s also on Sling, so you can watch it there too.