Jeremy Clarkson: A Maker or Breaker in the Automotive World

If you follow the car news – even if you don’t – you can’t have ever missed the name the world’s most famous car show presenter, Jeremy Clarkson. His influence measures in the millions of cars sold just because he deemed them beautiful, or unsold since he said they looked like a frog. (Sorry, Ford Ka.)

Let’s see who the man is and what makes him so important.

Jeremy Clarkson was born on April 11th, 1960 to entrepreneur parents. To raise money to pay for their children’s education, his parents made 2 Paddington Bear toys (one for each child) and sold it through their business. Mr. Clarkson worked as a traveling salesman, and later on ventured into journalism where he started testing and writing about cars.

You probably know him as one of the 3 hosts of the British car show Top Gear where he appeared from 1988 to 1998 and from 2002 to 2015. Together with James May and Richard Hammond, he investigated the new and old cars and the way they behaved in various situations (no matter how far-fetched they may seem). Just remember the episode where they made amphibious vehicles from old-fashioned 4-wheelers:

Or the one where they showcased their truck driving skills:

How about the one where the gang participated in a police race:

There is no denying that Top Gear wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill show about cars, where you get to see the new models coming out this year, or appearing on this or that event. It wasn’t about showing the driving law loopholes, or potholes in your native town. What set this show apart from all the others was Jeremy Clarkson’s with and sometimes too sharp a tongue, a wacky sense of humor and all the crazy settings you can imagine.

“He did this by realizing that people were less interested in being told about a car’s valve timing, compression ratios, and tire sizes, than they were in knowing whether said car would improve their general quality of life and if being seen driving one would make attractive people want to sleep with them,” BBC states on their website.

Just the information that at the moment of Mr. Clarkson’s exit from the show in the ’90s it had 6 million viewers, but in just the short time the number dropped to 2 million faithful watchers. You can believe that a big part of the viewers were women, as the show is known for popularizing the automotive industry with the female population in over 100 countries.

He issued insults on so many occasion on and off camera, has been called a racist numerous times and his big mouth has caused him getting fired from the show he made, but that didn’t stop him from effectively crossing the Atlantic and essentially continuing the same thing with the same pair of cohosts, which is only a testament of their friendship and loyal viewership.

To shake things up (Jeremy Clarkson style), here are a few things you probably didn’t know about the man:

1) He loves wearing denim jeans at any given opportunity. Sadly for jeans manufacturers, this association with middle-aged men has been dubbed the ‘Jeremy Clarkson effect’, and has been blamed by some for a decline in sales 20 years ago.

2) Jeremy has never hidden the fact that he disliked the Rover brand, and some critics have attributed his views as influential enough to bring the closure of the car company. Referencing Winston Churchill’s famous speech, he once said: “Never in the field of human endeavor has so much been done, so badly, by so many”.

3) Even though Jeremy Clarkson’s words can make or break an automobile (figuratively, of course) but sometimes his insults don’t always work. This was the case when Clarkson lambasted the Toyota Corolla. After his review, car sales actually went up for this domestic automobile.

4) When you’re the host of one of the greatest car shows of all time, you have to have one of the best cars out there. Jeremy Clarkson has owned over 16 luxury cars over the past 20 years. Some of these cars include a Ferrari F355, Aston Martin Virage, and Lamborghini Gallardo.

5) Jeremy Clarkson has excellent taste in cars and gave up several vehicles in order to get the best. After trading in his Ferrari Spyder and his Mercedes Benz he was able to buy a 2005 Ford GT. It’s one of only 28 cars available in the United Kingdom.

6) He apparently passed his test in style back in 1977, behind the wheel of his grandfather’s Bentley R Type. He was so confident that he’d pass the first time, he even brought along scissors to remove the L-plates afterward.

To get a review of your own car, and get the reason it may act strangely, come to CRS Automotive. We may not be Jeremy Clarkson, but we are your trusted mechanic. We are expecting you in Hamilton and Oakville today!