As the BBC's Top Gear remains on hiatus after Freddie Flintoff's decision to quit the show following his hair raising crash whilst filming for the show in December last year, it would appear that Channel 4 have something equally high octane in the pipeline for motoring fans.
According to reports in the press over the weekend, they are currently in production of a new series called Bangers, the host of which is believed to be a man who's all too familiar with producing bangers - albeit of the chart topping variety - which is British rapper Tinie Tempah.
The BRIT and MOBO Award winning superstar behind hits including 'Pass Out', 'Not Letting Go' and 'Written In The Stars' is a self confessed supercar fan, and insiders believe that he is "a great option as the talent attached to the project, as he adores cars."
Full details are being kept under wraps at this stage, but Bangers is believed to be heading to primetime Channel 4 either later this year or just into 2024, and will focus on classic cars from the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties, taking a closer look at some undiscovered gems of the supercar world from each decade and the stories behind their manufacture and performance.
Meanwhile, Angela Rippon, who hosted Top Gear in its first incarnation from 1977 to 1978, has offered her take on Flintoff's departure, as she had been making a film piece with him on the now indefinitely postponed series that saw his horrific collision occur.
Speaking at the TRIC Awards last week, she said "After his accident I sent him a text saying, 'Next time you want to go around the course a bit slower, just give me a call.'" Further pressed, she concurred that the hosts were often "asked to do things that even professional drivers very often would find difficult … for [Flintoff] this was an ask and a task too far and his life is more important than a television programme."
Whilst Flintoff will certainly be missed on the show, Rippon does have a point; it is a show that pushes those fronting it to the limits. But if there's one thing that Top Gear has proved time and again in the last 20 years of its current format, is that presenters coming and going, life threatening crashes and - nay - even a global pandemic, as in two of the last three years it's been on air, is just the nature of the beast.
From the BBC's perspective, no one talent or crisis ends up being bigger than the show, and it almost always manages to bounce back from whatever controversy it finds itself wrapped up in. Freddie Crash-gate (as we are calling it) is one such instance - as indeed will any to come in the future be. As long as Top Gear still has an audience, it will go on.
Visit our Dunsfold Park page on the Driving Experience website to browse and book from available Supercar, Drifting and Classic Car experience packages at the former site of the Top Gear test track from available dates on our Events Calendar or purchase of our Gift Vouchers.
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