Pending technical developments and approval from Apple, the Top Gear app looks set to launch in the late spring.
It will mark the BBC’s third magazine iPad app, following launches for culinary title Good Food and science magazine Focus.
It is likely to have a subscription price between £1.50 and £2.50 every four weeks (13 issues a year), compared to the £3.95 cover price of the magazine, and aims to corner the automotive market.
The TV show's presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are likely to contribute although precise content has yet to be finalised.
Simon Carrington, publisher of Top Gear, told Media Week: "We're looking at how Top Gear magazine could work best in a different medium. The interactive nature of the iPad app could open up lots of opportunities for Top Gear magazine and enable us to approach content in a different way.
"Our aim is to become the market leader with what will be an interactive app based on the hugely successful magazine brand and TV show. The magazine is published every four weeks, 13 times a year."
Top Gear remains the UK's biggest-selling car magazine and the third biggest-selling men's monthly, with a circulation of around 190,000.
In the most recent magazine ABCs in August, Top Gear magazine increased its subscription sales by nearly 7% between January to June 2010 to almost 60,000 subscribers.
Meanwhile, its accompanying website is expected to report a sharp rise in the number of unique browsers in its ABCe figures, published tomorrow (17 February).
Unique users for the motoring site are anticipated to have risen by more than 60%, from 2.3 million in the first half of the year to about 3.8 million in the second.
The upcoming Top Gear app follows , featuring comment from controversial presenter Clarkson.
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