The Americans fit into a production that, through the three episodes available to critics, is more straitlaced than its counterpart — that’s wary of driving outside the lines. Even when the concepts sound potentially wild, the execution doesn’t have the glee or flair of the British show, no matter how much the American hosts laugh and whoop and high-five over one another’s exploits.

While plenty of mild humor is dispensed on the subject of manliness — and the second episode ends with a seeing-eye dog urinating on stage — the overall feel of the show is the gee-whiz earnestness bordering on sanctimoniousness that is the default position of much of American reality TV. One result is that some of the segments feel more like auto advertisements than they do in the British show.

Image Tanner Foust is driving the Mitsubishi Evo on “Top Gear.” Credit... History Channel

That the new “Top Gear” is on the History Channel, rather than a network like Spike or MTV, certainly has something to do with that affect. One area where the American show is superior to the original is the amount of actual technical information it relays on cars and driving.

In a show about cars, of course, the very idea of Americanness can’t help but be both a practical and an emotional issue. The show is put together by the American division of BBC Worldwide Productions, with an American executive producer, Scott Messick, whose résumé includes reality shows like “Destroy Build Destroy” and “Celebrity Bull Riding Challenge.”

The producers seem to be trying to play down the patriotic angle as much as possible, though in the moonshine competition, where each host had to buy a car for $1,000 and then drive it in rugged conditions in the North Carolina hills, Mr. Foust was ragged for buying a 1987 Nissan. (He won.)