Top Gear is a show that defined modern automotive entertainment. While the show initially began in 1977 as a series focusing on car reviews, road safety tips, and consumer advice, by the late 90s the viewership took a nosedive. The BBC canceled the show in 2001. However, old Top Gear presenters, Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman refused to call it quits.
By the following year, the two presenters had created a new format that would change the course of car-related shows around the world. Clarkson and Wilman, presented the bigwigs at the BBC with a new format that consisted of celebrity interviews, outrageous special road trip segments, a series of challenges with old and new cars, and a mysterious masked/helmeted driver called – The Stig.
The first series aired in 2002 with Clarkson accompanied by Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe, as Wilman assumed the role of the main producer of the show. Season two saw Dawe replaced by James May and the holy trinity of TV presenters was complete. Top Gear became the BBC's crown jewel, witnessing huge success not just in the UK, but it seemingly became one of the best TV shows... in the world. Between 2002 and 2015, the BBC released a total of 22 series of the show and 177 episodes.
Sadly though, the infamous and unfortunate altercation occurred during the filming of Series 22 that involved Clarkson assaulting one of the producers. While Clarkson had already been a controversial figure, the "Fracas" that took place on Mark 15, 2015, was the BBC's final straw. The BBC announced that they would not renew Clarkson's contract for Top Gear and the future of the show as well as the presenters were brought into question.
With Clarkson no longer working with the BBC, his co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May, producer Andy Wilman, along with a handful of other key people from the production team left the BBC as well.
But why is it that James May and Richard Hammond decided to leave Top Gear along with Clarkson?
Update May 2022: This article was updated with more information about Richard Hammond and James May leaving Top Gear.
Top Gear: A Reluctant Band of Brothers
To answer that, it’s important to look past the amazing cars, past the glamorous shooting locations, and past the sometimes explosive (literally) pranks Clarkson, Hammond, and May would play on each other. The on-screen chemistry of the trio was intense. Replacing any one of the presenters with another, the show would simply collapse. Top Gear would need to start from scratch, and so would the team.
Each of the three had their quirks, areas of expertise, unique taste in cars, and more importantly a great sense of humor. All that created points of contention, but the lighthearted friction those differences created seemed to add a layer of entertainment to the mix.
James May once called it “the sitcom element” during an interview with The Guardian. “I was a car journalist when I started on Top Gear. It was all about cars. And then it all spun out of all control and we turned into figures of ridicule to keep the viewers happy,” said May. Apparently, that ridicule later morphed into a relationship characterized by affectionate hate. “We work because we hate each other,” added May. “That’s the magic formula.”
New Top Gear: The Show Did Go On
Solidarity would be a heartwarming reason for Hammond and May’s departure, but it’s likely not the only thing that kept the three together. The other reason is that, like true rockstars of their genre, Hammond and May realized that their relationship was more important than Top Gear itself. “I don’t know to what extent they wanted us to stay,” said May when describing the aftermath of Clarkson’s firing. “I quickly realized the best outcome for us was to stay together because that’s what our fans want. They’re our first loyalty and our first love.”
As kind as that sounds, we’d also wager that Hammond and May thought about the work it would take to integrate a new host into the show—especially one that could replace Clarkson, the trio’s gravitational center—and decided that it was just too much work. Top Gear then spent quite a few years for new hosts bringing in people like Matt LeBlanc, Chris Evans, Eddie Jordan, the late Sabine Schmidt, and others, but it didn't work. They finally settled on the current three presenters – Chris Harris, a revered automotive journalist, English cricket legend, Freddie Flintoff, and comedian Paddy McGuiness.
The Move to Amazon: The Grand Tour
As we know now, Hammond and May did right to assume that their relationship was more valuable than Top Gear. The motivation was personal, as well as financial for Hammond and May. The three presenters with Wilman on the side was a highly lucrative package for any media production house. The team signed a deal for a new car show similar to Top Gear, but due to legal reasons, some differences as well. On November 18, 2016, the new show called The Grand Tour was released on Amazon Prime Video which gathered the new on-demand platform with a plethora of new subscribers.
It was reported that Clarkson alone went from making $891,000 in 2014 while filming Top Gear to earning around $12.3 million a year on the set of The Grand Tour.
In addition to The Grand Tour, the trio has each made individual shows on the platform that include Clarkson's Farm, James May's Oh Cook, James May: Our Man In Japan, and Richard Hammond in The Great Escapists.
The Grand Tour itself saw three-season between 2016 to 2019. Following this, the show shifted to focus on making long format specials for the subsequent episodes, and move away from the old Road test, track lap times, celebrity interviews format. The fourth series features four episodes filmed in South East Asia, Madagascar, Scotland, and Britain. The next special is expected to be released soon after the production team and presenters were seen filming in Scandinavia. We can't wait to see what they have in store next.