Justin Bell in 'World's Fastest Car Show' from eBay Motors

Justin Bell in 'World's Fastest Car Show' from eBay Motors

eBay has had a tough go of it since former CEO Meg Whitman stepped down, but what change a week can bring: now, Whitman's been tapped to help the sinking ship known as HP, while eBay Motors has just launched an impressive new series for the web and mobile devices called "World's Fastest Car Show", hosted by racing driver Justin Bell.

"World's Fastest Car Show" is available on eBay and on the eBay Motors app. According to the eBay Motors blog, the series is meant to be "a weekly automotive adventure Web show that power slides into the intersection between car culture, entertainment and sheer performance." In the first episode (embedded below), Bell puts the 2012 Ford Mustang Boss 302 through its paces on Mulholland Drive, then zips over to last month's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance for a look at some of the concept cars that were on display.

Will people watch?

Launching a car-oriented show is a dicey proposition -- just ask Jay Leno, for whom Bell used to work as the driving instructor on the ill-fated Jay Leno Show. The media is saturated with car news, so for "World's Fastest Car Show" to stand out, it's going to have to walk a fine line between being audacious enough for enthusiasts but also friendly to car newbies. And it's relying heavily on Bell, who's not entirely a household name (at least not in the U.S.).

On the upside, the show's format is short, and the first episode is well-edited. When push comes to shove, we'd rather watch eight minutes of good TV than 44 minutes of crap and 16 minutes of commercials. And though it's pretty clear that Bell wants to be a low-cal Jeremy Clarkson, he's affable enough to hold the show together. 

Frankly, the biggest obstacle to this show's success may be eBay Motors itself. The company is trying to drive viewers to its website by hiding the show's YouTube clips, but from where we sit, eBay would do better sharing the episodes widely across networks. After all, that's what social media is all about -- being social, right?

If you have seven minutes and 44 seconds to spare, have a look at the first episode of "World's Fastest Car Show" and weigh in below: