Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure: Top Gear, Grand Tour and Twenty Years of Magic and Mayhem

Name: Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure: Top Gear, Grand Tour and Twenty Years of Magic and Mayhem
Rating: 4.235848903656006 (106 reviews)

Andy Wilman

Nov 2025 · Random House

106 reviews

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416

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About this ebook

Lift the bonnet on 20 years of magic and mayhem on Top Gear and The Grand Tour - from the mysterious man behind the camera . . .

The perfect gift for fans of fast cars, big laughs and full-throttle TV adventures!

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.

Lift the bonnet on 20 years of magic and mayhem on Top Gear and The Grand Tour - from the mysterious man behind the camera . . . The perfect gift for fans of fast cars, big laughs and full-throttle TV adventures! -- Top Gear turned gloomy Sunday nights into celebratory Friday nights. It made...

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Ratings and reviews

106 reviews

noel beharis

May 24, 2026

A walk down the Memory Lane of Conversation street of Top Gear and the Grand Tour. Reliving moments, fond and otherwise, of the show only now to realise it was a show of bloopers. Or so it was thought. A must read for fans of that Car Show with Jeremy, Richard and James. Would have liked to know more about how Richard when about naming the 25 new lambs on radio.

D B

July 3, 2026

Very much what I had hoped for. As one of those who saw some of the original Top Gear, watched every episode of the New Top Gear and the Grand Tour religiously through my youth, and wondered each time what the next special would bring, it's an appropriately funny and self-depricating look behind the scenes with just enough descriptions of the shows to jog the memory, but not bore. Quite the opposite, actually: I think I need to rewatch a few. For the 5th or 6th time.

Michael OConnor

October 4, 2026

Superbly written , when reading it reminds you of who you were with and where you were and how you felt. Something that usually only the best music manages to pull off .

About the author

Andy Wilman is the author of no books. Except this one. He did however have a career in journalism which began at Auto Express and continued at Top Gear magazine, before making the leap from print to television when he helped produce Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld. After a brief and monumentally forgettable spell in front of the camera Andy realised the best place for his face was behind it, and with that sorted he and Jeremy went on to make some very watchable telly, including Meet the Neighbours, the 2002 reinvented Top Gear, The Grand Tour, and a couple of cracking WW2 documentaries. His driving licence is currently in a drawer somewhere at the DVLA.

Andy Wilman is the author of no books. Except this one. He did however have a career in journalism which began at Auto Express and continued at Top Gear magazine, before making the leap from print to television when he helped produce Jeremy Clarkson’s Motorworld. After a brief and monumentally fo...

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