Jeremy Clarkson has confirmed that the upcoming third season of his Amazon Prime motoring show The Grand Tour will not be the last.
In a message to his 7.12 million followers on Twitter, the former Top Gear star said that he and co-presenters James May and Richard Hammond will be making a fourth series - but with a new format.
Clarkson’s announcement follows months of rumours suggesting that Amazon - which paid a reported £160m for a three-series deal in 2015 - would be dropping the motoring show, owing to high running costs.
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The Sun had confirmed that the studio show is coming to an end, and reports that Clarkson “choked up” while filming the last segment, telling audience members that “it’s the end of an era.”
He later told the newspaper: “It’s a really sad day. I will miss the banter with each other and with the audience.
“But we’ve been doing that show for effectively 17 years - sitting around in studios, watching cars race around the track. We all agreed that we’ve been doing it a long time and everything eventually runs its course.”
“Besides, I’m 58 and I’m too fat to be climbing on to the stage”, he joked.
Going forward, the trio will instead embark on big-budget road trip specials, and will also develop their own shows for the Prime Video service, according to The Guardian.
The Grand Tour season 3 returns to Amazon Prime on 18 January.
