The BBC's Top Gear will feature fewer crazy stunts in the next series. Here are six of the silliest so far

It's been announced that the new series of Top Gear is to be quite unlike any series of Top Gear you've ever seen, in that it's going to be about cars. Actual cars. Not cars decorated like cottages, or cars strapped to the side of hot-air balloons. Actual cars. Ahead of Sunday's first episode, James May has done the unthinkable and warned viewers not to expect as much "Last of the Summer Wine tomfoolery" as they're used to.

This news is bound to divide opinion. Yes, Top Gear is still a motoring show at heart, but its huge global audience still primarily watches to see three middle-aged morons clown around like the world's paunchiest schoolboys.

So as we look forward to a future when Jeremy Clarkson will be recognised less for his ability to push cars off battleships and more for his ability to churn out endless Christmas books differentiated only by his imperceptibly different facial expressions on the covers, let's commemorate this bygone age with a look at some of Top Gear's stupidest comedy stunts:

1. Car darts (2004)

An early indication of things to come. Although it's still technically a car-based segment, the cars are only used as projectiles to be fired into a quarry by James May and Richard Hammond. One of the first signs that, in the revamped Top Gear, motoring would take a backseat to the spectacle of adult men hopping from foot to foot and cackling.

2. The airship (2009)

Only tangentially related to cars at best (Richard Hammond was driving underneath), James May's airship caravan stunt managed to combine Top Gear's love of pointless indulgence better than most. Most, but not all.

3. World's smallest car (2007)

Jeremy Clarkson drives around the BBC in a tiny car. That's basically it. You see? Clarkson isn't an out-of-touch millionaire with slightly tedious political views – he's just the same as you. Well, not you. The annoying bloke you work with. He's just the same as him.

4. Four Go Mad In Dorset (2006)

Depending on who you ask, this stunt will either go down as Top Gear's all-time high watermark, or the moment when the rot set in. Clarkson, Hammond and May lurch from one scripted set-piece to another, culminating in an accidental caravan explosion that makes them all run around and pull funny faces. When James May spoke of "Last of the Summer Wine tomfoolery" he may well have been directly referencing this.

5. Top Ground Gear Force (2008)

A charity special that ditched the cars altogether so that the hosts could point jet engines at raw chickens, commit arson, fire shotguns at sheds and generally babble and yelp at each other like a trio of Gibraltar monkeys. Entertaining, but another sign that Top Gear was turning into Geriatric Jackass?

6. Jeremy Clarkson's accent and silly hair (1989)

But maybe Top Gear won't dispense with the comedy stunts completely. After all, take a look at this early, pre-revamp Top Gear clip. During an otherwise sober piece on junk sale auctions, Jeremy Clarkson still manages to jazz things up by putting on a crazy wig and doing a warped, stilted Mr Cholmondley-Warner accent. At least I assume he's doing it as a joke. Isn't he?

Have I missed any particularly memorable stunts? Are you pleased that Top Gear is going serious? Comments please.