Top Gear to shift down a gear after Clarkson and co are hit by the credit crunch



Top Gear is to become the latest casualty of BBC budget cuts, the show's producer has revealed.

Economies at the corporation could mean an end to the motoring show's famously over-the-top car stunts.



Top Gear is BBC2's most watched programme, attracting audiences of up to 8million in the UK in its Sunday night slot. A new series is scheduled for spring 2009.

Extravagant: Jeremy Clarkson smashed a lorry through a brick wall at 56 miles per hour this year - which would cost a fair amount to stage

It is estimated that the show currently costs £100,000 per episode to produce.



However, Andy Wilman, the channel's executive producer, said that economies would have to be made.



Past stunts have included presenter Jeremy Clarkson driving a truck through a brick wall, while his co-presenter Richard 'Hamster' Hammond suffered brain injuries after he crashed while driving a jet-powered drag-racing car at 288mph on the show. He has since recovered.

Nearly fatal: Richard Hammond was left badly injured after this Vampire jet car overturned

Extravagant: Last year, Clarkson, May and Hammond raced from Resolute, northern Canada to the North Pole

Referring to the likelihood of cutbacks, Mr Wilman writes in his blog on the Top Gear fansite: 'No point in moaning about that. All shows are suffering and nobody's got a pot to p*** in any more anyway, so no reason why we shouldn't suffer as well.



'Our problem though is that there is no fat to trim off the show, in that we waste almost nothing behind the scenes and the old cliche of "every penny goes on screen" is actually true.



'So in 2009, the budget cut has to affect what you watch and Clarkson has had a brainwave in making this as painless as possible.



Every penny is on the screen: In the Top Gear Winter Olympics Special in 2006 a Jaguar XK was pitted against a speed skater on a frozen lake in Norway

Globe trotting: the team have traveled around the world, including for this Botswana episode

'Basically instead of trimming back a little bit on every show - losing a helicopter here or a truck crash there - we'll endeavour to make 13 of our 14 shows as per the usual Jerry Bruckheimer standard and then the last one, when we only have a tenner left, will be utter, utter sh**e.



'But they had fun singing songs in the dark during the Blitz, so let's see what happens. Great stuff may come of it.'



The BBC is already slashing its programming budget by as much as 30 per cent in some areas after it admitted it was facing a £140million funding shortfall caused by inflation and rocketing utility bills.



Expensive stunts: A Citroen is overturned and blown away by the jet blast of a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 in 2004

Despite this Clarkson, 48, signed a lucrative contract earlier this year, reported to be worth £2million a year, to present Top Gear.



Hammond, 39, and fellow co-presenter James May, 45, also agreed new deals worth £25,000 and £20,000 a show respectively.



A BBC spokesman declined to give any figures but said: 'Like every programme across the BBC, Top Gear is engaged in delivering efficiencies.



'But viewers can be assured that the next series will be as compelling and exciting as always.'



The strict budget of the show was in evidence in Top Gear's Vietnam special, when Clarkson and the gang were forced to buy scooters after realising they couldn't afford second hand cars in the country.

The trio had been given 15million dong (£600) each to buy 'wheels' and soon realised that cars are very expensive in Vietnam and that bikes, to Clarkson's horror, are more affordable.

Jeremy Clarkson (left) in Vietnam this October where he said 'It's the only motorbike I've ever had' and (right) a few weeks earlier in September making tracks near his Cotswolds home



The constraints led to self-confessed bike-hater Clarkson having to be shown how to get the scooter started, let alone keep it standing.



However despite his professed ignorance it appears Clarkson, who declared on TV, 'I can't ride a bike' and 'It is the only motorbike I've ever had', may have put in some practise beforehand.

For back in September he was seen out and about on a navy Vespa near his Cotswolds home - just weeks before he travelled out to Ho Chi Minh City to film the Christmas episode.

The BBC had no official comment to make on this discrepancy when contacted by Mail Online.

Unsteady as he goes: Clarkson enrols the help of an Australian to teach him how to start the scooter

The premise for him fumbling around on the lime-green Vespa in Vietnam's largest city was when he and his co-workers were told to buy second-hand 'wheels' to cross 1,000 miles of the country.

When he failed to start the scooter, eager onlookers offered the confused presenter tips on how to get going. He paid particular attention when a blonde Australian tourist stepped in to help.

He then grumbled to BBC2 viewers that it was only 'after an hour' that he managed to set off.



Credit crunched: Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson and James May will have to tone down their stunts on the popular BBC2 show



