Jeremy Clarkson has said he is sad the BBC is scrapping many of the customised cars featured on Top Gear.
The motoring show’s former host commented on the corporation’s decision to destroy a number of the memorable vehicles that were altered by Clarkson and his co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May when they hosted the show from 2002 to 2015.
These cars had been available to view at the National Motor Museum until the exhibition closed in 2023 following Freddie Flintoff’s near-death experience while filming an episode of the series.
But the BBC have now decided to scrap some of the modified vehicles outright.
Those sent to the scrapheap include a Mini Cooper used for a car ski-jump attempt in 2006 and a caravan airship that May used to fly across England in 2010.
“I’m sad that many have been destroyed,” Clarkson, who is enjoying huge success with the lifestyle show Clarkson’s Farm, told The Sun.
“I guess the problem is some people see cars as just a ton-and-a-half of glass, plastic, metal and rubber.
“But to petrolheads, they’re more than that. That’s especially true of cars we used on Top Gear.”
BBC Studios confirmed it has “rehomed the majority of the show’s iconic vehicles” but downplayed the number of cars that are being scrapped.
A spokesperson claimed that “many of them will be available for public viewing at a soon to be announced new location”.
After Flintoff’s horror crash, the BBC said that production of Top Gear had been halted “for the foreseeable future” – and its future remains uncertain.
After Clarkson, Hammond and May’s time on Top Gear ended, they moved to Amazon for Prime Video series The Grand Tour, which premiered in 2016.
The show’s latest episode was not only the Grand Tour finale, but the end of Clarkson’s 22-year partnership with his co-hosts – and his retirement from motoring shows.
“After 36 years of talking about cars on television, I’m packing it in, because I’m too old and fat to get into the cars that I like and not interested in driving those I don’t,” he told The Sunday Times in September 2024.
“What this means of course is that my 22-year partnership with James May and Richard Hammond is now over.”
Clarkson said it “makes the three of us happy” that their working relationship did not disintegrate “in a blizzard of outrage and tabloid headlines”, but was “landed safely and gently”.
“Was it sad when the director called, ‘That’s a wrap,’ for the very last time? Yes, it was. Especially as some of the crew had been with us when we were there before. People think of Top Gear and The Grand Tour as being James, Richard and me. But it isn’t. We’ve had the same crews for years. We’ve all grown up together”
