Top Gear is a British motoring-themed magazine television programme. It is a revival of the 1977–2001 show of the same name for the BBC, devised by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman, which premiered on 20 October 2002. The programme expanded upon its earlier incarnation which focused on reviewing cars to incorporate films featuring motoring-based challenges, races, timed laps of notable cars, and celebrity timed laps on a specially-designed track. The programme drew acclaim for its visual and presentation style, as well as criticism over the controversial nature of some content. The programme aired on BBC Two until it was moved to BBC One in 2020.
The programme's first series in 2002 was presented by Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and Jason Dawe, with an anonymous test driver "The Stig" also featuring. Wilman was the show's executive producer. Following the first series, Dawe was replaced by James May, with the line-up unchanged until the end of the twenty-second series, when the BBC chose to not renew Clarkson's contract in March 2015, following an incident during filming. His dismissal from Top Gear prompted the departure of Hammond, May and Wilman from the programme, who joined Clarkson on a new motoring series for Amazon, The Grand Tour.
Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc were appointed as new hosts of Top Gear and they were joined by four co-presenters for the twenty-third series. After negative feedback on this series, Evans resigned from the programme, with LeBlanc joined by Chris Harris and Rory Reid as the main hosts. From the twenty-seventh series onwards (2019), the presenting line-up was changed following the departure of LeBlanc and Reid, with Harris joined by Paddy McGuinness and Andrew Flintoff. This series proved more popular with viewers. Production of the thirty-fourth series was halted in March 2023 after Flintoff was seriously injured in an accident during filming; the BBC later announced that Top Gear would not return for the "foreseeable future".
In August 2026, the BBC announced that the show will be returning, but has not confirmed any hosts nor whether the relaunched show would be a reboot or a continuation of the 2002 incarnation.
Top Gear has been one of the BBC's most commercially successful programmes since its relaunch. It has become a significant part of British popular culture, with episodes also broadcast in many countries in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia and more, making it the most widely-broadcast factual television programme in the world. Its success has led to merchandising including live tours, special DVD editions, and books, as well as spawning international versions in several countries.
After the BBC cancelled the original format of Top Gear in December 2001, Jeremy Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman met to work out ideas for reviving the programme for television. This led to them eventually meeting the broadcaster to pitch the idea of changing it from a motoring magazine format to one that was studio-based. Amongst the ideas that were pitched included: the involvement of a fixed location for car reviews and other films, alongside locations across Britain and abroad; putting notable cars through a timed lap of a circuit; the involvement of test driver with veteran racing experience, who handles driving some of the cars for the programme; and the participation of celebrity guests who would be invited to take part in an episode, undertake an interview over motoring matters, such as their car history, and take part in a special challenge to do a timed lap in a designated car. Following the pitch, the BBC decided to green-light the new format, in order to create a programme to compete with Channel 5's new motoring show Fifth Gear, to which several original Top Gear presenters including Tiff Needell, Vicki Butler-Henderson and producer Jon Bentley went.
Production began in mid-2002, with the broadcaster securing the right to use Dunsfold Aerodrome, an airport and business park in Waverley, Surrey, as the programme's fixed location – while its runways and taxiways were allocated for reviews and other films, one of the site's large aircraft hangars was transformed into Top Gear's new studio. To match the proposed ideas for the new format, the BBC gained assistance from Lotus to design a race circuit at the aerodrome. The runtime of the programme was extended to one hour. Wilman took on the role of the show's executive producer, while Clarkson became part of the hosting line-up. Because most of those who had worked with Clarkson on the original programme had left the BBC to work on Fifth Gear, the production team arranged for him to be joined by Richard Hammond and Jason Dawe.
A difficulty found during production revolved around the show's test driver – neither Clarkson nor Wilman could find a racing driver with experience at speaking on-camera. They opted to make the driver silent, and later having their identity concealed. When they recruited Perry McCarthy amongst their candidates for the role, his input led to Wilman choosing to nickname the test driver "the Stig".
To date, there have been 13 presenters of the show:
The first series of the new format of Top Gear premiered on 20 October 2002. In its early state, the programme's segments were based on elements of the previous format, such as interviews and viewers' letters, but also featured some new humorous elements, such as the presenters regularly destroying a caravan during the early series.
After the first series, Dawe was replaced by James May. Having previously been a presenter on Channel 4's motoring programme Driven and the 1999 series of Top Gear, May initially declined to be a part of the new format, until its growing popularity later changed his mind.
At the beginning of the third series, McCarthy was replaced as the Stig by Ben Collins for contractual reasons. The Stig's outfit was changed from a black outfit to a white one.
As the programme progressed, the format slowly began to transform, with a focus towards creating a unique presentation style for the programme, which included the addition of new segments, a more unusual approach to reviewing cars, road trips, and more specialised films involving races – either between cars or between a car and another form of transport – and completing a variety of challenges, mostly with cheap, second-hand cars.
2006–2014: Changes and growing popularity
In early 2006, the BBC made plans to move the programme's film site from Dunsfold to Enstone, Oxfordshire, in preparation for its eighth series. The move was later cancelled, after West Oxfordshire District Council strongly objected to the planned move, on the basis of noise and pollution concerns. As a result, the broadcaster ordered that filming continued at Dunsfold during May of that year, despite having no permit to do so, with the eighth series unveiling a revamped studio set. In addition, the "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment was modified with new rules along with a new car, while Hammond included one of his dogs for the series throughout its studio segments, along with a number of films made for this series and the next.
On 20 September, during production for the ninth series, Hammond was seriously injured while driving a Vampire turbojet drag racing car at up to 314 miles per hour (505 km/h), as part of a planned feature, leading the BBC to postpone the broadcast of Best of Top Gear until a later date, and delaying production on the series until the presenter had recovered. Both the BBC and the Health and Safety Executive carried out inquiries into the accident, with filming later resuming on 5 October. The opening episode of the ninth series, aired on 28 January 2007, included footage of Hammond's crash; while it was not repeated like other episodes in the programme, it attracted higher ratings than the finale of Celebrity Big Brother, providing one of the highest ratings for BBC Two for a decade, alongside the series finale, which attracted around 8 million viewers.