Jeremy Clarkson has revealed that he and co-stars Richard Hammond and James May were ‘mostly smashed’ while filming the last episode of The Grand Tour.
The veteran TV presenter made the comments at a Q&A after a premiere screening of The Grand Tour: One For The Road, which looks set to be the last ever motoring programme hosted by the trio.
The ticket-only screening took place at the Who Wants to be A Millionaire host’s new pub The Farmer’s Dog in the Cotswolds on Friday night.
During a Q&A following the premiere, Clarkson told the crowd how he and his co-stars were ‘mostly smashed’ during filming but ‘hopefully nobody will notice’.
He also claimed to have filled a third of a cargo plane with beer after failing to fill it with crew and filming equipment.
In their final escapade together, Clarkson and his co-stars will explore beautiful landscapes in a Lancia Montecarlo, a Ford Capri 3-litre, and a Triumph Stag.
When asked how many units of alcohol they drank per episode, Clarkson, 64, replied: ‘I’ll let you into a little secret.
‘We had a big cargo plane to move all of the kit we needed to film and a crew of 70 people and more but we didn’t fill the plane.
‘A third of it was left – we thought, ‘so what should we put on that?’ Beer was the answer.
‘But we do drink a lot, we are mostly smashed – hopefully, nobody will notice.
‘I’m duty-bound to tell you there was a three-day gap between arriving and setting off – but there wasn’t.’
Clarkson also said he does not have the same love for cars as he did 35 years ago as ‘they’re all s**t now’ and called the capital of Bolivia, La Paz a ‘s**t hole.’
He said: ‘Genuinely 80 per cent of them now 90 per cent, I couldn’t even identify. I don’t know what they are, I don’t care.’
The Diddly Squat farm owner also spoke about the Top Gear days and filming in Alabama and Argentina where infamous episodes were filmed.
In an episode shot in Alabama, the trio are apparently chased out of town after spray-painting each others cars with offensive messages.
While in Argentina they caused a diplomatic incident after one of the cars’ number plate had the number 82 – which locals believed was a deliberate reference to the 1982 Falklands War.
The last adventure also sees Jeremy, Richard, and James ignore producer Andy Wilman’s instructions and head to Zimbabwe in three cars they’ve always wanted to own.
Another first look snap shows the trio giggling around a campfire as they sip on a couple of beers and enjoy a relaxing break next to a stunning lake.
Jeremy said: ‘I was more frightened in Alabama than Argentina. In Argentina, we bravely flew away before the trouble started.
‘The crew was there, and they had a really torrid time. Alabama was bad – everybody ran there. I found myself at one point behind James May’s Cadillac.
‘Behind me was a pickup truck with good old boys with guns – I guess it was a kind of ‘look after your mates’ situation.
‘I thought, ‘f*** that,’ and overtook James, leaving him to it – it was pretty scary.’
Clarkson was also asked who the fastest driver out of Hammond, May, and himself was.
He replied: ‘Richard has driven fast twice, had his trousers cut off twice, and got in an ambulance twice.
‘James once went 45 mph, and it nearly killed him.’
After mishearing the question ‘What’s next for you?’ as ‘What sex are you?’ he also quipped ‘Oh the Labour Party’s here!’
He also revealed the person he most wanted to see as the star in a reasonably priced car was music legend Bryan Ferry.
He went on to downplay Top Gear’s influence on the motoring world and added:
‘We never thought we were influential. It reviewed the Ford Orion and I gave it a really hard time.
‘It went on to be Britain’s best-selling car. I then said the Renault 6 TL was brilliant – but they sold six.’
Hammond paid tribute to his two co-stars as the trio’s 20-year partnership came to an end.
He said : ‘I’ll be really honest, and they’ll mock me for this, but I’ll miss them terribly. We’ve worked together for twenty years.
‘We’ve worked hard, and we have to egg each other on, and it’s never just loafing about. So, it’d be difficult to recreate that situation.
‘If I go over and visit Jeremy at his farm, it would be to go over and relax. That’s not the same as having to get up at five in the morning and drive for eight hours through the jungle.’
Long-time producer Andy Wilman told the Edinburgh TV Festival that filming the episode was ‘quite weepy’ and ‘quite heart-stringy’.
The Grand Tour: One for the Road launches globally from 13 September only on Prime Video