12 interesting facts you might not know about 'Top Gear'

The original series aired in 1977 in the BBC Midlands region and ended in 2001. A year later, a reimagined version of the show of the same name starring Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and Jason Dawe — who was replaced with James May after the first season — aired and instantly became a global phenomenon.

Rippon was one of the show's original two presenters along with Tom Coyne. She was also its first female host. Although she only held the position until 1979, she was a trailblazer in a man's automotive world, paving the way for future female hosts like Julia Bradbury and Vicki Butler-Henderson.

In addition to "Top Gear's" presenters, there is also the mysterious Stig, a professional race car driver whose identity is hidden behind an all-white tracksuit and helmet. It's the Stig's duty to test drive cars and set lap times on the show's test track — they also previously prepped celebrity guests for their drives.

During a Reddit AMA, former Stig Ben Collins said that to help protect his identity, he "got myself a BBC ID card with a fake name 'Richard Jameson' cleverly made of the 3 presenters names - so that I could book hotels and get up to mischief without getting caught. Used to wear a balaclava everywhere to hide my face anywhere near a 'Top Gear' shoot and generally be as sneaky as possible."

In addition to its purpose as the track for "Top Gear" bits like "star in a reasonably priced car," the track serves as a testing facility for Lotus Cars' — the company that designed it — Formula One racing program.

When professional drivers aren't racing around its corners, Hollywood actors are. According to Top Gear Box, scenes from the film "Red 2," the James Bond film "Casino Royale," and the British TV show "Come Fly With Me" have been filmed at the track.

An extra tidbit of trivia: The track is located at Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, England, which was built during World War II, and served as a Royal Canadian Air Force airbase. Later, it was turned into a manufacturing and test facility for the company British Aerospace.

Nowadays "Top Gear" is considered an entertainment juggernaut but when the show first started nearly two decades ago it took a bit of convincing to get audience members to stay while filming episodes.

During an appearance on George Nicole's podcast The DriveThrough, Clarkson said that he and co-hosts Richard Hammond and James May used to prevent audience members from leaving the studio early by paying them.

"We'd get a studio audience of probably, I don't know, 30 people," Clarkson told Nicole. "And by the end of a recording, we'd probably be down to ten. They'd just leave. They were bored.

"And we were having to pay out of our own pockets for them to stay. 'Here's a tenner. Please stay, just stand in the back of the shot, please don't go'... 'Here's 50 quid. Please don't go.' We were battling and nobody was watching on television either, really, not in the first couple of years."

The series made it into the Guinness World Record 2013 Edition book for being the world's most-watched factual TV program. More than 350 million people in more than 200 countries watch the series, according to The Guardian.

The three hosts starred as race commentators in a 2014 episode titled "Live and Let Drive."

"I couldn't say yes quickly enough," Richard Hammond told the Press Association, according to BBC America. "I did 'Phineas and Ferb' as a way of impressing my children. They think I've done something cool for once!"

Jeremy Clarkson lent his voice to the series' fourth installment in 2011 but for Motorsport 5 in 2013, his buddies Richard Hammond and James May were also featured in the game.

Hammond's and May's voices in addition to the "Top Gear" test track were included in subsequent versions of the game, but Clarkson did not appear in another Forza game due to the 2015 incident that saw him removed as a "Top Gear" host.

Back in 2008, Auto Blog wrote that there were 336,000 people who had submitted requests for tickets to see a show taped. Based on the number of episodes filmed each season, the outlet calculated that all of those people equated a 21-year wait.

That would mean people who entered the queue in 2008 would be able to get tickets by 2029. Since the show has maintained its popularity through the years, there's no telling how many people have joined the waitlist since 2008.

Jeremy Clarkson in particular has been very opinionated about the cars he's tested on "Top Gear." So much so that the automotive industry has a name for his influence: "The Clarkson Effect."

Jamie Matthews, chief executive officer of Initials Marketing, told 360 Finance that Clarkson's millions of fans across the globe value his opinion and take his comments to heart when considering buying a car.

"The Jeremy Clarkson effect is renowned within the car industry," Matthews said. "He can make or break car launches. He's entertaining and eccentric, but he's also the car expert who has an opinion, and that's what buyers want: They are looking for a strong point of view about a car to guide them."

The number of female "Top Gear" hosts pales in comparison to their male counterparts, but a large percentage of viewers are female, according to a 2016 article from The Guardian.

After hitting 80.04 mph at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire, England, on October 26, 2020, McGuinness broke the world record, which had previously been set by an inventor earlier that year. The ice cream van, nicknamed Mr. Nippy, was jerry-rigged together using various different car parts to meet the necessary requirements set by Guinness.

"Since joining 'Top Gear' I've already had a lifetime's worth of amazing experiences but achieving a Guinness World Records title is total life goals," McGuinness said in a statement on Guinness' website. "The distant jingle of an ice cream van still makes kids and adults giddy with excitement and I hope viewers enjoy what we've done with the unique Mr. Nippy."