Have  you checked out this show on the Speed Channel yet? Comedian Alonzo Bodden hosts 101 Cars You Must Drive. The next episode airs at 9 p.m. (Eastern) tonight, but episodes repeat, so check your local cable listings and set your Tivo or recorder.

A winner of the Last Comic Standing, Bodden takes you for five rides per episode. You get to see the good, the bad and the ugly churned out by the automotive industry. Not all the cars shown are dream cars. Bodden drives the industry’s lemons too. “I literally have driven everything on the show from a Ferrari Dino to a Ford Edsel. So it’s not all exotic cars or beautiful cars or dream cars,” says Bodden. “There are a few dream cars and a few — I don’t know if we’d call them nightmares — but let’s just call them automotive mistakes or hard-to-believe cars.”

A former stealth fighter mechanic and gearhead himself, Bodden knows his cars but delivers his hilarious assessments like he was working a comedy club. His improvisational skills make for entertaining viewing. The series is an abridged version of the book 365 Cars You Must Drive and uses a six degrees of separation formula to link the five cars showcased in each episode. One episode featured Italian cars; another, cars named for birds like the Studebaker Golden Hawk and Ford Thunderbird.

Like fellow comics Jay Leno, Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman and Tim Allen, Bodden collects cars, though he says he has a long way to go before he’ll be in the same league as his more famous peers. He calls his collection, which includes a Hummer and a Mini Cooper, his “Jay Leno starter kit.” His prized “road trip car” is an Alpina B7, but his pride and joy are his Ducati and Triumph motorcycles. Bodden is already planning a sequel to the series: 101 best places to ride your car or bike. I can’t wait!

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