The Grand Tour

Jeremy Clarkson Admits Exactly What Made His Top Gear So Great

Top Gear hasn’t been the same since Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May left in 2015. Since then the show has had a number of different hosts who have brought their own presenting style – some better than others, but now the current presenters seem to be onto a good thing. Chris Harris, Paddy McGuiness, and Freddie Flintoff have received highly positive reviews for their version of Top Gear, and in a recent interview with DriveTribe, Jeremy Clarkson believes this to be true from what he’s been told.

But nothing has ever compared to the 2002 Top Gear. Why is this? The Grand Tour presenter explains why he believes it was so good.

I’m told, I haven’t watched it, but I’m told Top Gear is very good in its current incarnation, but we did 26 series,” he says, shrugging to the camera.

“And you know, you have to really work your socks off for a long time to get to where we got to.”

Clarkson first joined the Top Gear team in 1988 when Top Gear was a very different machine from what it became. He later rebooted the series with Andy Wilman in 2002, alongside fellow hosts Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe. A year later and James May replaced Dawe, and since then the relationships between the three presenters blossomed into what we have now.

Fans have often explained that it wasn’t the cars that made the show so good, it was the chemistry between the presenters. And if you watch the first few series of Top Gear, you’ll realise it wasn’t great. Only after years of working together did the presenters finally click, and this, as Jeremy explained, came from hard work and perseverance.

You can watch Clarkson, Hammond and May’s chemistry in the most recent episode of The Grand Tour which aired late last year. A Massive Hunt followed the presenters as they battled through the awful roads of Madagascar in order to find hidden pirate treasure.

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One Comment

  1. James May was definitely the right brick in the wall. For me Top Gear starts from series 2, that is when May arrived. And i do not agree, that the first series of the trio were not that good. It was. Their interaction was right on spot from the start and it only got better. One of the reasons was, that they were (and are) very intelligent people. Second is, that they were not trying to be cool (except Hammond:). And third is, that they complemented each another. MIddle aged, overwight, not best dressing habits, these were actually thier strong points. Add to that intelligent humor, childish fun and cocking about – that what their trio is.

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