Enlarge (credit: DriveTribe)

Earlier this year, we found out that in addition to The Grand Tour, Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond were looking to take over a slice of the automotive Internet. Meant to be a “digital hub for motoring,” DriveTribe is a Facebook-powered social media platform that has in recent weeks swept up a large number of well-known car journalists, including, it seems, most of the staff of Evo magazine. It’s also a completely separate venture to the Amazon-funded TV show. This morning, DriveTribe opened its doors to the general public.

The concept, which Hammond described to Clarkson as “like YouPorn, only with cars,” is simple enough. After signing in via your Facebook account—so no DriveTribe for you, Lee Hutchinson—you’re asked to pick a selection of tribes, or content feeds, that suit your automotive interests. (You can also create your own tribe). These feeds contain all manner of stuff; short, tweet-like messages, a photo (or several), or even a lengthy article. Some tribes, and some members, are also given a blue tick, indicating that these are blessed by the management as being official. Users can bump posts, comment on them, share them, and so on—all the things you’d expect of a social media platform.

DriveTribe, in all its online glory. The black-and-white UI is rather sleek. (credit: DriveTribe)

By signing up so many content producers before the fact, DriveTribe ought to have a sufficiently steady stream of fresh stuff to look at—lack of content is always a peril with a new Internet venture. Promisingly, the intellectual property rights to all that content remain with whoever posted it; DriveTribe CEO Ernesto Schmitt (one of the founders along with the GT three and their producer Andy Wilman) told Business Insider that the plan is to make money through native advertising.