before moving to the BBC for the last two years of old Top Gear. Jason Barlow also went on to present the new BBC show, Wrong Car, Right Car, which ran for two series.
That said, the migration of presenting talent between rival TV stations was generally in the opposite direction: already several of old Top Gear’s presenters had transferred to Channel Five’s new motoring show, Fifth Gear (initially written as 5th Gear), including Vicki Butler-Henderson, Tiff Needell and Adrian Simpson. This was launched in 2002 with a host of famous faces and was at first a half-hour programme (until the longer formatted eighth series onwards) with a more factual bias. Sounds familiar? That’s because according to the latter show’s former producer Jon Bentley, any relation to the old Top Gear was not necessarily a coincidence.
Bentley had been approached to produce Five’s new motoring show and given his vast experience and renowned passion for the subject was unrivalled in terms of what he could offer. He was one of several former Top Gear faces behind-the-scenes at the new programme: ‘I’d kept in touch with some of the people who continued to work on Top Gear after I’d left. Late in 2001, I got a call from Richard Pearson and he said he’d left the BBC, joined North One Television and was setting up a new show called Fifth Gear for Channel Five. I thought this sounded great fun. I was series producer for the first few series.’
Bentley attended various meetings and the brief for the new show was made very clear: ‘What they said was that they wanted old Top Gear … they wanted exactly the same, a very straight magazine show.’ Five’s decision, it transpired, might have been just the adrenaline shot that Top Gear needed.
Maybe the gusto with which Five launched Fifth Gear caused consternation in the back-rooms of the BBC? It’s difficult to say, but what’s clear is that with just one series of Fifth Gear completed, the BBC made another announcement. Top Gear was to be relaunched in a new format, with some new presenters and the full backing of Aunty Beeb.
While conspiracy theorists were enjoying the ‘Will they/won’t they kill off Top Gear?’ etc, two former faces from that programme had been quietly re-inventing the wheel. Some time during 2001, Andy Wilman, the former Repton school pal of Clarkson (as stated, himself a Top Gear presenter), had called up his friend and they’d met over a pub lunch to talk about the show and a possible relaunch. Wilman had tired of the old format and has since stated – in his famously brusque way – that it had become ‘fucking old-fashioned’. Both he and Clarkson revelled in the opportunities to be outspoken, film outrageous features and generally make the show as much about entertainment as it was about cars.
And so they drew up a masterplan: the duo instantly became a potent creative force, drawing on their long friendship and substantial shared TV experience. As Jon Bentley says, ‘Andy’s a splendid chap, very hardworking indeed. They definitely have a very close relationship.’ Over the coming weeks, this intensely creative partnership drew up a brand new template for any potential Top Gear relaunch.
First, it would be screened from a central location, in this instance an old aircraft hangar rather than the previous magazine style; another idea was to not shy away from supercars, in fact they wanted to gravitate towards them, so there was to be a news section that would quickly despatch important but ‘boring’ car news (with one-liners such as ‘there’s a new Nissan Micra out’); there would be an all-male presenting line-up; also a so-called ‘Cool Wall’ to post pictures of cars and rate their desirability (of more later); outlandish and indeed cutting-edge TV features were to be encouraged; they would always be outspoken and speak their minds about the cars they tested and there would be a smattering of celebrity guests. Wilman’s defence of this bombastic and super-confident approach was simple: ‘Do the Two Fat Ladies say, “And if you want to have a low-fat version of this recipe, you can use single cream”? They never do. They go, “Pile it on, heart attack now!”’
The BBC loved the re-invention and commissioned the first series of ‘new’ Top Gear, set to be broadcast on 20 October 2002. The plan was to have two series per year of between 8 and 10 episodes. In the new Top Gear office, an ‘Ideas Board’ for suggestions was put up and initially filled with suggestions for features from the production team; over time it has also hosted ideas from fans or members of the public. Each show would usually have four filmed features (although this would fluctuate, especially when more substantial challenges were screened). This meant the Top Gear team had to create and execute around 70 to 80 ideas per year: no mean feat, creatively or practically.
The Top Gear production set-up is unusual within the BBC. Wilman only works on the series and is invariably talked of as being very ‘hands-on’. Famously direct, he has been described by one former co-worker as like ‘a glum, but familiar uncle on a rare visit home’. Top Gear’s office itself is open-plan and the team say the production process itself is very ‘organic’.
The show still used The Allman Brothers’ Band theme tune of ‘Jessica’, albeit updated. There was one final change: whereas the old Top Gear logo used a cog for the letters ‘O’ and ‘E’ in its name, the new version only employed a cog behind the word ‘Top’.
On that initial programme, the very first cars seen on-screen were a Ford Focus and a VW Golf; the team would be testing the Citroën Berlingo and Mazda 6 for the more mild-mannered viewer but they’d also be thrashing the beautiful Lamborghini Murcielago and the breath-taking supercar, the Pagani Zonda, as well as featuring the Ford GT40. There was Harry Enfield as a guest and a feature on how fast you have to drive to be too fast for a speed camera to nab you. Remember Jon Bentley having to battle to film the Ferrari Testarossa versus the Lamborghini Countach? Well, in the first series of new Top Gear alone, as well as the two aforementioned supercars, they also featured among others, the Noble M12 GTO, the Westfield XTR, an Aston Martin Vanquish, the Ferrari 575M Maranello, a Nissan Skyline R34 GT-R, the Bentley Image, the Honda NSX Type R, the Lotus Elise 111S, a Maserati Coupé, the Lotus Esprit and a TVR T350C! This was Andy Wilman and Jeremy Clarkson absolutely setting out their stall. Clarkson even introduced the new show as such prior to the opening credits of Episode 1, saying before the theme tune kicked in that it was ‘a car programme’, there’d be no cushions, no one would sing on the programme or get a recording contract, pointing out their test track was purpose-built and adding there’d be no bus lanes and no traffic jams.
Before moving on, it’s vital to note one further addition to the show’s personnel. In order to test the long list of supercars they were intent on featuring on the new Top Gear, the team had decided that they needed someone other than a presenter to trial the machines around the test track. So, in Episode 1, Clarkson explained this thinking and said they’d decided to look for a real racing driver because they have ‘tiny little brains and worthless opinions’. Then, for the very first time ever, he introduced The Stig. At this stage, The Stig was wearing all black, à la Darth Vader.
For the first series, the presenting team was JC, Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe. Hammond’s path to Top Gear had been a quirky one: contrary to Wilman’s supposedly all-male line-up plan, unconfirmed TV legend has it that certain folk may have been considering whether to recruit a female presenter, but Richard Hammond was sent along too as he shared an agent with a woman that they were interested in.
Hammond was a long-time fan of the show and avidly watched old Top Gear as a kid. As we have seen, he had been making good progress on various cable TV channels but in mainstream terms, he was a relative unknown. At his audition, he made a good impression and was initially asked to make some short films for a possible Top Gear spin-off.
The Guardian quoted a ‘former BBC executive’ as saying, ‘We interviewed lots of high-profile motoring journalists and half of them were scared shitless of Jeremy. The remarkable thing about Richard is he was naturally funny and
