Book info

• Title Mr Wilman's Motoring Adventure
• Author Andy Wilman
• Year 2025
• Genre Memoir

Top Gear turned gloomy Sunday nights into celebratory Friday nights. It made household names of presenters Clarkson, Hammond and May, their unique chemistry and buddy movie antics proving irresistible to a vast global audience. With these three at the helm, Top Gear earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the most popular factual TV show on the planet. Then, a short while later, it was all gone. How did a thoroughly sensible little consumer advice programme on cars turn into a global phenomenon in the first place, though? How did it all go wrong? And how did they rise from the ashes as The Grand Tour, and go on to scale even greater heights? One man has all the answers. There from the beginning, Top Gear and The Grand Tour co-creator, and Jeremy’s oldest friend, Andy Wilman, opens the bonnet on over twenty years of motoring mayhem. In Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure, the mysterious man in the shadows tells the inside story of your favourite TV shows for the first time. Irreverent, joyful and as laugh-out-loud funny as the shows themselves, it’s the best book about Top Gear and The Grand Tour... in the world.

Thoughts

You can love or hate the phenomenon that is Clarkson, May and Hammond but you can’t argue that they have achieved some incredible things. This book takes you behind the scenes for a new angle - the infamous Mr Wilman. I didn’t know a lot of the early stuff, that he and Clarkson had been friends for so long and just how much his career was propelled by Clarkson helping him out. Then you get to Top Gear and how that evolved and grew and became the beast it was… until eventually it imploded. I really liked the frank details here - where they didn’t act in the best way, Wilman doesn’t shy away from that, and he’s equally proud to discuss what they did well. There are highs and lows and crashes and races, things we know and things we don’t, and it’s all written really well with great humour. I loved it.

Rating: 5 / 5