JEREMY Clarkson has been forced to bid farewell to his beloved custom Bentley.
The luxe vehicle, which was kitted out with heavy duty enhancements to tackle Madagascar’s roughest roads, was driven by Clarkson in the latest special Grand Tour episode A Massive Hunt.
The trio each chose different motors to navigate the tropical landscapes and Clarkson admitted that the process saw him bond with his green powerhouse of a car.
In fact, he enjoyed driving it so much that he decided to have it shipped back to his home in the UK to keep.
Unfortunately it wasn’t meant to be – as he was subsequently told he had to scrap the Bentley because of its custom build.
“I fell so deeply in love with that car that I decided I’d bring it back to the farm,” Jeremy explained.
“It took a while but, eventually, the Bentley arrived back in Britain, and I was very happy.
“But then came word from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency – the Bentley had started in life as a development mule and the rules say these must be destroyed to ensure they don’t ever seep onto the market.”
The news will no doubt leave motoring enthusiasts cringing given the staggering value of Bentleys, which costs hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Clarkson’s comments come after he revealed the staggeringly low amount of money he made when Top Gear launched on the BBC.
He claimed that the show was at “the bottom of the BBC ladder” and he raked in a meagre sum annually as a host.
He told the Andy Jaye Podcast: “For the first five years I was on Top Gear the most I earned was £180 in a year.
“People say BBC people are overpaid – we weren’t then.
“We got paid nothing, that’s for sure. While crews and producers would fly to locations I’d be expected to drive the car to the likes of Europe, we were seen very much as the bottom rung of the ladder, the worst paid on the set and so on.
“But it put us in front of seven million people a week which does put you on the radar.”
By the end of his stint at the Beeb Clarkson is estimated to have been paid £1million a series.
He and co-hosts Richard Hammond, 51, and James May, 57, were snapped up by Amazon for The Grand Tour in a deal thought to be worth around £160million in 2015.
The Grand Tour is available to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime.
