Photo: www.finalgear.com
New reports in Top Gear’s scandal revolved around an offensive driving plate claim the team used the H982 FKL number several days after they were warned not to. The show’s producer has recently confirmed this, in an explanation of the whole incident he wrote on a blog. According to him, everything was just a big misunderstanding.
In case you’re not up to date with the whole “Falklands and Top Gear” scandal we’ll remind you that Top Gear was shooting a new episode in Argentina a couple a weeks ago when they found themselves forced to leave the country. Everything started from Jeremy Clarkson’s Porsche whose license plate read H982 FKL, which could stand for the Falklands War, a very sensible subject in Argentina. Considering Clarkson’s long line of scandals, most of the reports assumed the whole scene was set out as a prank of some sort.
However, according to Andy Wilman, the producer of Top Gear, things are just a big misunderstanding, a line of weird things that turned the entire situation into what you’d call a “media fiasco.” Wilman confirmed his team got “the stoning that we deserved when we were chased out of Ushuaia, a city where bitter feelings about the Falklands War run strong and deep.” But the producer says nobody deliberately put the number plate, a thing “Jeremy has said so in print, James has said so on the radio, and Richard will be saying so on the radio again next week.”
Wilman is aware his show is rather known for getting into hot water through their antics, which is why the fans deserve to know the whole story. “For starters, we would not base a joke around soldiers in conflict. Anybody who knows Top Gear knows how much work the presenters and the show does for ‘Help For Heroes’, and in our eyes soldiers are soldiers whatever the uniform,” Top Gear’s boss wrote.
Because we’re not fond of taking sides in this whole story, we’ll just put Wilman’s explanation of the incident below, exactly as he wrote it on the blog:
“Knowing this could be a problem, our office spoke to the local authorities in Ushuaia, the town where the war issue was most sensitive, and where we would end our trip in ten days’ time with a massive game of car football. We agreed with those authorities that the plates would be removed before we entered the town, and it was at this point – not before we left London – that we decided to get the BE11 END plates made for Jeremy’s car for the football match in the town. Before we entered Ushuaia we duly removed the H982 FKL plates from the Porsche. For a day or two, the plate on the back said H1 VAE (the plate left there, underneath H982 FKL, from when one owner had privately registered the car). An advance party of our guys had been in there for a few days already, prepping the football game with no problem whatsoever. The local ski resort was looking forward to us filming there too.There was nothing in the air to suggest trouble was brewing until the Argentinian veterans arrived and kicked off.”
However, according to Andy Wilman, the producer of Top Gear, things are just a big misunderstanding, a line of weird things that turned the entire situation into what you’d call a “media fiasco.” Wilman confirmed his team got “the stoning that we deserved when we were chased out of Ushuaia, a city where bitter feelings about the Falklands War run strong and deep.” But the producer says nobody deliberately put the number plate, a thing “Jeremy has said so in print, James has said so on the radio, and Richard will be saying so on the radio again next week.”
Wilman is aware his show is rather known for getting into hot water through their antics, which is why the fans deserve to know the whole story. “For starters, we would not base a joke around soldiers in conflict. Anybody who knows Top Gear knows how much work the presenters and the show does for ‘Help For Heroes’, and in our eyes soldiers are soldiers whatever the uniform,” Top Gear’s boss wrote.
They've changed the plate a bit too late
It turns out that the first time the team realized the place could be a problem was on the third night of their shoot in Argentine, which was on September 19. Clarkson was the one to find out, while he was scrolling through Twitter and spotted a comment on one of the auto fan sites, next to a photo of the plate.Because we’re not fond of taking sides in this whole story, we’ll just put Wilman’s explanation of the incident below, exactly as he wrote it on the blog:
“Knowing this could be a problem, our office spoke to the local authorities in Ushuaia, the town where the war issue was most sensitive, and where we would end our trip in ten days’ time with a massive game of car football. We agreed with those authorities that the plates would be removed before we entered the town, and it was at this point – not before we left London – that we decided to get the BE11 END plates made for Jeremy’s car for the football match in the town. Before we entered Ushuaia we duly removed the H982 FKL plates from the Porsche. For a day or two, the plate on the back said H1 VAE (the plate left there, underneath H982 FKL, from when one owner had privately registered the car). An advance party of our guys had been in there for a few days already, prepping the football game with no problem whatsoever. The local ski resort was looking forward to us filming there too.There was nothing in the air to suggest trouble was brewing until the Argentinian veterans arrived and kicked off.”
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