One of the BBC’s most successful ever exports, motoring show Top Gear, has had a chequered run in recent years, culminating with it being indefinitely suspended after presenter Freddie Flintoff was badly injured in an accident in 2022.
Now, former presenter Jeremy Clarkson says the show is needed more than ever, with the arrival of more electric cars.
Clarkson left the show under a cloud in 2015 after an altercation with a producer, and went on to front Amazon Prime’s The Grand Tour as well as his own hit farming show Clarkson’s Farm, but he told The Times of London it would be very sad if the show never returned.
Clarkson said: “There’s room for a car programme at the moment because cars are changing so fast and electrical cars are coming along and nobody really understands what’s a good one and what isn’t.
“Back in the 1950s motoring journalism was important because all the car companies were trying new things — different types of engines and different types of gearboxes — and you needed people to steer you through the complexity.
“Then by and large it was unnecessary for the last 40 years and now it’s necessary again because [when] I look at a kilowatt per hour car, I have no idea what that means.”
Clarkson was quick to rule himself out of any such show, however, explaining: “I just don’t understand or like electrical cars, so I wouldn’t be interested in doing it.”
His remarks come in the same week as the launch of Flintoff’s self-titled documentary on Disney+. The former cricketer revealed in the feature-length doc that his accident made him believe he had been treated as “a piece of meat” by programme makers, saying:
“That’s the danger that television falls into — and I found it out the hard way eventually. Everyone always wants more. Everyone wants that thing that no one has seen before — that bigger stunt, or to dig that little deeper.
“In some ways they think: ‘Let’s have that near miss because that will get viewers.’ I should have been cleverer because I had already learnt it in sport after all the injuries and injections and times I got sent out on a cricket field like a piece of meat. That’s where TV and sport are quite similar. You’re just a commodity.”
Flintoff suffered serious facial injuries when his three-wheel car overturned during filming of the show in December 2022. The show was immediately put on hiatus, and Flintoff said in the documentary that he has kept very little contact with his former co-presenters, for his fear of being “triggered” by memories of his accident.
The BBC launched an investigation into the circumstances of the accident, which The Times added “includes a number of recommendations to improve approaches to safety” including “increased clarity on roles and responsibilities and better communication between teams for any future Top Gear production.”
Top Gear debuted back in 1977, and enjoyed its most successful era from 2002 with Clarkson at the helm, alongside James May and Richard Hammond.
