It may seem hard to believe now, but the news that a presenter had left a TV show sparked a huge media frenzy a couple of years ago. Of course, this wasn't any ordinary TV show: this was Top Gear, the most watched show…in the world. As we know, Clarkson's punch up with a producer spelled the end of his career at the BBC. At the time, the future of the show and Clarkson's career path was uncertain – you probably wouldn't have believed the show would be resurrected a few months later with Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc at the helm.

Before Clarkson, Hammond and May were offered a substantial amount of money by Amazon to launch rival car show The Grand Tour, a video shows some of the craziest job offers the three of them received during their downtime. While touring their live show in Norway, Clarkson explained to the press how he could have been the new face of Russian car television.

"Russian military television want me to host a car show," he told them at the time, before dismissing the idea for being "mildly terrifying". Perhaps that's where he got his inspiration for the recent episode of The Grand Tour where he blew up Hammond's "bug out" armored car. May, meanwhile, jokingly claimed he didn't have any job offers other than menial jobs "as a waiter in a local pub" and "cleaning cars." Of course, we all know the three of them bounced back and turned The Grand Tour into the roaring success it is today. Meanwhile, we're looking forward to seeing if the new series of Top Gear can learn from last year's mistakes when it returns early this year.