Auto Trader

As part of Auto Trader’s Top Gear week, Adrian Hearn trawls through the archives to bring you 30 essential facts on the BBC’s motoring flagship - one for every year the show has been on our screens.
 
1. The show has a worldwide audience of over 350 million people in more than 90 countries.

2. Angela Rippon and Noel Edmonds fronted the first ever episode of Top Gear, which was made by BBC Birmingham’s Pebble Mill in 1977.

3. In 2005, Top Gear won an International Emmy for best non-scripted entertainment show – despite being largely scripted. Clarkson later said he couldn’t attend the show in person because he was busy writing the next episode.

4. The show was also named Most Popular Factual Programme in the 2006 National Television Awards, beating the groundbreaking Planet Earth. Referring to Richard Hammond’s crash, Clarkson said: “I told you if one of us had a car accident, we’d win this.”

5. After Richard Hammond’s 288mph jet car smash in September, Clarkson said: “When I heard, I rushed to see him. He had a nasty biff on the head, but was reading Auto Trader.”

6. More than £230,000 was raised for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance in the aftermath of Hammond’s accident.

7. In 2005, motoring organisation Transport 2000 called for Top Gear to be axed and replaced by a more educational ‘Third Gear’. 

8. One episode in July 2006 received 155 complaints. Two made about Muslim comments, three made about comments against an audience member who ‘looked like Jesus’ and 150 from angry caravan owners. Later, In December 2006, Jeremy Clarkson was berated by BBC bosses for referring to a car as ‘gay’ and ‘ginger beer’.

9. The BBC was forced to pay £250 compensation to a Somerset Parish Council in February 2004 after Clarkson drove a Toyota Hilux into a 30-year-old tree to show the strength of the pickup truck.

10. Jeremy Clarkson has a clean driving licence.

11. When Clarkson described the Toyota Corolla – the world’s biggest selling car - as dull, the manufacturer banned the show from test driving any of its models.

12. It took 33 16-hour days to make the 32 minute film of the infamous Bugatti Veyron race, where Clarkson drove the world’s fastest car from Italy to England against May and Hammond - who were flying.

13. The Stig is introduced each week with a random fact. Strange ‘Stigisms’ include ‘He is banned from Chelsea Flower Show,’ ‘invented Branston Pickle’ and ‘he always points magnetic north.’

14. The fastest road legal motor to lap the track is the Koenigsegg CCX, which completed the course in just 1min 17.6secs. This was after the Swedish manufacturer fitted a spoiler to the crazy supercar on Top Gear’s advice.

15. A Sea Harrier jump jet managed the course in 31.2 seconds.

16. The slowest car to do a ‘power lap’ on the track is the Overfinch Range Rover, which completed the circuit in 1min 44secs – the same as Stig’s time in the ‘reasonably priced’ Suzuki Liana.

17. Despite spending most of her time circumnavigating the globe in a boat, Ellen MacArthur has the fastest lap time for a celebrity in the Liana – 1min 46.7secs. F1 star Jenson Button – whose time doesn’t count on the celebs’ board - was just two seconds quicker.

18. Snooker ace Ronnie O’Sullivan’s lap time in the Liana was the same as the sport’s maximum break – 1min 47secs.

19. When Jonny Vegas took the Liana on a lap, the Suzuki was fitted with L-plates, as the comedian didn’t have a full licence. He still beat four other guests including Harry Enfield.

20. Gambon Corner refers to the final corner of the Top Gear track when acclaimed thespian and lunatic driver Michael Gambon nearly rolled the Liana.

21. Ex-soldier Billy Baxter claimed he could do a Star in a Reasonably Priced Car lap quicker than the late Richard Whiteley – despite being blind. Baxter beat the Countdown legend and Radio 2 stalwart Terry Wogan on the way.

22. The waiting list to watch the show live is now between one and two years.

23. Despite being perceived as a male-dominated show, the studio audience is always split 50/50 between men and women. Audience members have to be over 18, because of the “constant swearing” which takes place. 

24. Even though it was named Top Gear Car of the Year in 2003, the Rolls Royce Phantom is still deemed ‘un-cool’ in Top Gear’s hard-to-fathom Cool Wall.

25. The Hamster also beat Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt to be named the person most people would like to share a car with in an Auto Trader poll.

26. While Clarkson is laughed at for his suspect fashion and unkempt hair, Richard Hammond is a ladies’ favourite and was named as the number one weird celebrity crushes by Heat magazine in 2005.

27. James May, (or ‘the other member of the team’ as he refers to himself) also presented Top Gear alongside Vicki Butler-Henderson and Tiff Needell in 1999 before it was scrapped due to low ratings.

28. Jeremy Clarkson is ten inches taller than Richard Hammond. Jezza is 6ft 5, while the diminutive Hamster stands at just 5ft 7.

29. Top Gear Dog is a Labrapoodle – a cross between Labrador Retriever and a Poodle.

30. The theme tune to the show is a version of the 1973 song ‘Jessica’ by southern rockers The Allman Brothers Band.