Even Jon Bentley himself briefly appeared in front of the camera in the latter half of the 1990s: ‘I did around a dozen items. I think my boss and the producer who was then working for me, a chap called John Wilcox, thought I’d actually be quite good at it and should be given the chance to move from behind to in front of the camera. I really enjoyed doing it and I’m still proud of some of the items: I launched a car design competition, for example, and the person who won it went on to become a car designer. In the end, I didn’t have time to develop this side of my career at that stage because there were so many other demands on my time.
‘One of the last things I did as a presenter was an on-screen recruiting exercise, asking viewers to apply to be a researcher on Top Gear. The personnel department were a bit worried at first, but they approved it in the end – I don’t think anyone had done this with a BBC programme before. I seem to remember several thousand people applied; it took a lot of going through but I looked at them all and it was very exciting. We spotted some good people out of it too, including Richard Porter who’s currently the script editor on new Top Gear and the man behind car blog Sniff Petrol, as well as James Woodroffe who went on to be the executive producer of [Channel 5’s motor show] Fifth Gear.
With such a glut of talent, Top Gear succeeded in shifting both public and motor trade perceptions: ‘I think it had become a credible car programme [by now],’ suggests Bentley. ‘When I started on it, you had to apologise a bit when you mentioned it to car enthusiasts. Now it had become credible, interesting and enthusiastically viewed by car enthusiasts while at the same time being entertaining and accessible to general viewers.’
As Bentley’s role changed within the programme’s structure, so too did Jeremy Clarkson’s profile. ‘I recall buying my first Amstrad word processor,’ remembers Jon, ‘and thinking, “Right, now I’ve got a word processor, I need to think of some ideas for new programmes.” One I eventually managed to sell to my boss was what became Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld. It’s an idea anybody could have had – quite generic, really – but it became a successful pair of series for us.’
This particular two-series show saw Clarkson travel the world looking at the car culture of various countries such as Monaco, India, Dubai, Japan and Detroit with each territory having its own show. There were 12 episodes across the two series and then a ‘special’ on the United Kingdom. Although the show was never a rival to Top Gear, it was important for two reasons. First, it highlighted just how capable Jeremy Clarkson was, and how his outspoken views and dynamic presenting style were perhaps already outgrowing the veteran motor show on which he first appeared on our screens. Second, Clarkson introduced a new face to the team behind-the-scenes on Motorworld – Andy Wilman, an old school-friend of his. Between 1994 and 2001, Wilman himself would actually present features in 35 shows of Top Gear.
Jon Bentley remained series producer of Top Gear until late 1996, when his boss Dennis Adams retired. He was then given responsibility for the whole motoring department at the BBC. During the next two years, his department produced 35 to 40 Top Gear programmes a year, a specialist show (Top Gear Motorsport), world rally coverage, a classic car series (The Car’s The Star), Jeremy Clarkson’s Extreme Machines and even a waterborne version of Top Gear called Top Gear Waterworld. The team also did a series of televisual car autobiographies, Several Careful Owners. By now, viewing figures for the main show were as high as 6 million.
In 1993, Top Gear was deemed successful enough to launch a spin-off magazine of the same name, which has largely been in publication ever since (and by the mid-2000s was the UK’s biggest-selling car magazine). This hard-copy format allowed the production team to conduct surveys and certain features that might otherwiseSeveral Careful Owners. be restricted by the television licence fee’s regulations – so, for example, the magazine was able to run an annual survey polling car owners’ satisfaction with their wheels. Around this period, there was even a radio show spin-off too, although the format was naturally more limited in terms of talking about a car’s aesthetics.
‘I also introduced an extreme sports show called Radical Highs,’ recalls Bentley. ‘Someone approached me to work on Top Gear but I didn’t think he was suitable. He did, however, have an interest in shooting extreme sports so I sent him round the world with his own camera shooting them. It was repeated for years!’
Meanwhile, Top Gear was coming under increasing budgetary pressures, despite having (initially) seen off many of the rival shows from other broadcasters in the 1990s. ‘There was always a drive to cut budgets,’ explains Bentley. ‘One reason why we rarely had more than one presenter on the screen at a time was because two was thought to be an extravagance.’
In January 1999, Jeremy Clarkson left Top Gear, after 12 years on the show. Behind the scenes, events were concerning Jon Bentley, too: ‘Towards the end of the 1990s, I became more and more embroiled in BBC management and more removed from the programme. As series producer I [had been able] to worry about the content, not the politics but [now] I had to play my role in a management team and that meant going down to London to attend meetings about the future of Radio 3 and attending long consultations about the fabric of Pebble Mill.
‘At the start of 1999, Jeremy decided it was enough – he possibly saw his future at that stage more in general presenting. Meanwhile, Pebble Mill was having its own crisis so I decided to move on. I have been pretty good at spotting talent over the years, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes,’ says Bentley, ‘but Jeremy himself is the reason for his success, not me.’
Clarkson’s vacant slot was taken by James May. Yet more changes were afoot, though: the programme had attracted increasing criticism for the content of many of its features. This new generation of faces had indeed coincided with the advent of Top Gear becoming far more light-hearted and humorous, something many fans credit Jon Bentley with starting. Interestingly, the car reviews were also liable to be much harsher than in the somewhat more liberal past. In response, motor trade and general press criticism began to rise too, with negative reviews of what was increasingly perceived as puerile schoolboy features that encouraged fast and dangerous driving and took an irresponsible approach to the environment and global pollution (sounds familiar?). Top Gear’s ratings started to slide …
Then, to some people’s surprise and to many critics’ delight, in August 2001, the BBC issued an official announcement about the programme’s future, saying it would be taken off air that autumn and the show had been put, ‘On the blocks while we give it a full service and an overhaul.’ Notably, the corresponding Top Gear magazine was not suspended and continued to sell heavily. The BBC also stated, ‘Top Gear has not been axed. It’s been given a rest as we look at what format will suit car enthusiasts in the future.’
Was it all over?
One of Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson’s first jobs was as a travelling Paddington Bear salesman. It might seem a long way from there to becoming Britain’s – and arguably the world’s – best known motoring journalist, but in fact his first foray into the world of employment was because his parents, Eddie Grenville Clarkson and Shirley Gabrielle Ward, owned a business selling such bears near the family’s Doncaster home (his mother was also a magistrate). According to some reports, their previous business was selling tea cosies. The bear line of work came about by accident, after they made two at home for presents for their own kids and people kept asking where they could buy them. With no small amount of ingenuity and boundless hard work later, the couple had a thriving business that was sufficiently profitable to send Jeremy to a private school.
He first attended the nearby fee-paying Hill House School and then moved on to Repton School in south Derbyshire (taking with him a vast collection of Dinky model