It was almost four years ago that hit car show Top Gear departed TV screens, but a return has finally been set in stone.
Announced at the Edinburgh TV Festival by Ed Harvard, the BBC’s director of entertainment, the official line is that “Top Gear is coming back”.
“There has been a lot of speculation around this, and we can confirm that Top Gear is making a comeback,” Harvard said at the event.
What’s unclear is who will host the show, although there is one clear frontrunner in British comedian Jimmy Carr, who twice appeared on the show as a Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, setting the fastest celeb lap on one of those occasions in 2004.
Harvard refused to confirm whether Carr would be starring on the rebooted show, saying: “Jimmy would be a great host, but I won’t be discussing that today. We will have more information on Top Gear shortly.”
Other frontrunners to host the rebooted series include former rugby player Joe Marler, who featured in the UK series The Celebrity Traitors last year, along with model and noted car enthusiast Jodie Kidd.
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay and celebrated actor Rowan Atkinson, both known for being big-time petrolheads, are also among the names being speculated online.
The show was most recently presented by journalist Chris Harris, comedian Paddy McGuinness, and former cricketer Freddy Flintoff.
Production was suspended in 2022 after Flintoff was involved in a major crash while driving three-wheeled Morgan Super 3 during filming at the show’s Dunsfold Park Aerodrome home base, leaving him with permanent facial scarring.
Originally launched as a motoring magazine programme in 1977, the show was rebooted in 2002 with Jeremy Clarkson at the helm, alongside Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe, the latter replaced by James May from Series 2 onwards.
You hardly need us to tell you about the global success the show went on to achieve, with Top Gear reaching 350 million worldwide viewers at its peak.
The iconic Clarkson-Hammond-May trio left the show in 2015, moving over to Amazon Prime to launch a new motoring program, The Grand Tour.
Since then, Top Gear has been through several iterations with a number of hosts given a go at fronting the program, including radio presenter Chris Evans, motorsport executive Eddie Jordan, Friends actor Matt LeBlanc, journalist Rory Reid, and the late racing driver Sabine Schmitz. Only Chris Harris survived every season since the 2016 reboot.
The timing of this announcement is curious as it coincides with The Grand Tour being given a reboot on Amazon Prime, now featuring James Engelsman and Thomas Holland of YouTube channel Throttle House alongside social media star Francis Bourgeois.
