BBC AMERICA'S NEW ORIGINAL COMPETITIVE CAR SHOW "MUD, SWEAT AND GEARS" PREMIERES MONDAY, JANUARY 26

Hosted by Tom 'Wookie' Ford and Jonny Smith, two best mates and UK car journalists, BBC AMERICA launches its biggest ever original unscripted series

New York - December 10, 2014 - BBC AMERICA's Mud, Sweat and Gears is a brand new competitive car show which hurtles onto screens in the New Year. Each week hosts Tom 'Wookie' Ford and Jonny Smith captain a team of two car nuts and go head-to-head to transform everyday vehicles. They have 24 hours to mutate, supersize and reconstruct - once transformed, the vehicles are raced in three extreme missions involving head-to-head sprints, timed challenges and stunts, lots of stunts. The missions are daring, adventurous, fun, and competitive - and all tied to different episode themes rolling out each week. Mud, Sweat and Gears premieres Monday, January 26 at 10:00pm ET on BBC AMERICA.

The first episode is filmed in an almost abandoned, decaying LA cityscape. The series opens with the two teams making the ultimate cop cars. Jonny is joined by two hot-rodding brothers from Detroit and, in a possibly foolhardy homage to 1970's British police dramas, Jonny chooses to start with a Jaguar. Wookie picks a Pontiac Firebird - like the model used in the movie Smokey & The Bandit - for his team, as they turn the ultimate outlaw car into a cop car. The teams get to work, welding, adding air rams, battering rams and mobile jail cells, before competing in three crazy cops and robbers challenges of increasing scale and difficulty, putting their creations to the ultimate test. Once the winner is declared, the loser's car gets annihilated.

From here episodes go on to explore creating video game cars, trucks of war, cars fit for our very own Olympics, high-speed delivery vehicles, off-road machines, spy cars full of gadgets, end of the world survival vehicles, and mightily destructive demolition vehicles.

Nathaniel Grouille is executive producer and showrunner for the series and Trice Barto is executive producer. Ricky Kelehar is executive producer for BBC AMERICA, Michael Brooks and Jane Tranter are executive producers for BBC Worldwide Productions and Julie Swanston for BBC Worldwide. The production was filmed in California.

Mud, Sweat and Gears is a BBC AMERICA original production co-produced by BBC Worldwide Productions and BBC Worldwide, distributed by BBC Worldwide. The series was ordered by Perry Simon, General Manager, BBC AMERICA and Tracy Forsyth, VP Commissioning, Original Content for BBC Worldwide.

Mud, Sweat and Gears will also launch across the BBC's international channels and is the first original commission to be announced for BBC Brit - the new male-skewing factual entertainment channel due to launch in several worldwide markets outside of the US in 2014.

Note to editors Twitter: @BBCAMERICA Hashtags: #MudSweatAndGears Website: www.bbcamerica.com/mud-sweat-gears

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Host Tom 'Wookie' Ford

Host Jonny Smith

Executive Producer & Showrunner Nathaniel Grouille (Junkyard Wars)

Executive Producer Trice Barto

Executive Producer Ricky Kelehar (BBC AMERICA)

Executive Producer Michael Brooks (BBC Worldwide Productions)

Executive Producer Jane Tranter (BBC Worldwide Productions)

Executive Producer Julie Swanston (BBC Worldwide)

Mud, Sweat and Gears is a BBC AMERICA original production co-produced by BBC Worldwide Productions and BBC Worldwide.

BBC AMERICA delivers U.S. audiences high-quality, innovative and intelligent programming. Established in 1998, it has been the launch pad for talent embraced by American mainstream pop culture, including Ricky Gervais, Gordon Ramsay, Graham Norton, and successful programming formats including ground-breaking non-scripted television like Top Gear and top-rated science-fiction like Doctor Who. A joint venture between BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, and AMC Networks, BBC AMERICA has attracted both critical acclaim and major awards including four Emmy(R) Awards, five Golden Globes(R) and 12 Peabody Awards. The channel attracts one of cable's most affluent and educated audiences and is available on cable and satellite TV in 80 million homes. It broadcasts in both standard and high-definition, with content available On Demand across all major digital platforms. Online, www.BBCAmerica.com is the place to go to dig deeper into pop culture with a British twist.