10 Great Gearhead Shows on Amazon Prime Video for Car Lovers
Maybe you’re a gearhead who loves getting your hands dirty in the garage and pushing vehicles to their limits. Or maybe you’re more of an armchair car lover who enjoys sitting back and watching the world’s top drivers do their thing. Either way, you’re sure to find something to enjoy in Amazon Prime Video’s vast library of automotive programming. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, here are 10 of the best auto shows you can stream for free right now on Prime Video.
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Big Easy Motors
Charles Handler and his Bomb Factory salvage team have three goals: 1) scouring New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana for promising classic cars, 2) restoring them to their former glory, and 3) quickly auctioning them off for a profit. Over this show’s 16 episodes, they take on ambitious fix-up projects like a rare Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am Bandit Edition and a Z28 Chevrolet Camaro.
Counting Cars
This Pawn Stars spinoff show follows the vehicle restoration exploits of Danny “The Count” Koker and his crew at Count’s Kustoms in Las Vegas. With four seasons currently available to stream for free on Prime Video, you can catch up on some of the team’s toughest projects and zaniest adventures as they restore seemingly hopeless cars and take on strange customization challenges, and get in (and out) of trouble.
Dangerous Roads
What’s it like to drive on the world’s most perilous roads? Across three seasons, a rotating cast of hosts decide to find out. Watching this funny (and white-knuckled) BBC series might be the closest thing to experiencing Alaska’s Dalton Highway, Siberia’s Road of Bones, or Bolivia’s Road of Death for yourself.
Deathwish
The hook for Deathwish is a good one — Josh Mazerolle and Erik Stacey road-trip across the country in search of weird adventures and challenging vehicle customization projects. They don’t have their own garage to use, so Mazerolle and Stacey are forced to rely heavily on ingenuity and help from random strangers.
Fernando
Fans of Formula One racing will appreciate this Spanish-language docuseries about two-time F1 champion Fernando Alonso. Across two seasons, Fernando explores the life and achievements of the racing legend, providing a behind-the-scenes look at what drives him to compete.
The Grand Tour
After 21 seasons on BBC’s legendary Top Gear series, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May switched over to Amazon. There, you can watch three Grand Tour seasons (plus three feature-length specials) filled with their uproarious banter, globetrotting hijinks, and car-enthusiast exploits.
The Gymkhana Files
This short but fascinating series takes you behind the scenes with racer and entrepreneur Ken Block. He and his Hoonigan team compete in the World Rallycross Championship, modify cars for extreme exploits, and work to finish filming their ambitious GymkhanaTEN viral-video project.
James May’s Cars of the People
The longtime Top Gear host switches gears a bit for this BBC series. In each episode, he travels the globe to learn about the world’s most ordinary mass-produced cars, how (and why) they got made, and — of course — the feats that they’re capable of.
Le Mans: Racing Is Everything
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is one of the world’s most storied and demanding racing spectacles. This dramatic docuseries follows six different teams as they prepare for the race and endure 24 hours of ferocious competition and merciless conditions.
Top Gear
You can’t watch every single Top Gear season for free on Prime Video, but there’s still plenty to choose from. Currently, seasons 2-6 and 10-15 of Clarkson, Hammond, and May’s automotive adventures are available to stream. You can also check out seasons 23-25, which feature a new slate of hosts.
A longtime editor/writer and recently transplanted Hoosier, Caleb Cook lives in Xenia, Ohio. His favorite activities are reading and listening to music, although he occasionally emerges from the heap of books and vinyl records in his basement to stand blinking in the sunlight. Once fully acclimated to the outside world again, he can be observed hanging out with his wife, attempting a new recipe in the kitchen, attending movies, walking the dog, or wandering into a local brewery to inquire about what’s on tap. See more articles by Caleb.