BRITISH TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson has described the moment the Top Gear cast and crew were attacked by an angry crowd in Argentina as “the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been involved in”.

The star and his crew on the BBC show had to abandon their cars at the roadside as they were pelted with stones.

Trouble erupted after it emerged the team were using a Porsche with the registration number H982 FKL, which some people suggested could refer to the Falklands conflict of 1982.

Mr Clarkson told The Sun tabloid the mob shouted “burn their cars” and tried to attack them with pickaxe handles.

“I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan, but this was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been involved in,” he said.

“There were hundreds of them. They were hurling rocks and bricks at our cars.

“This is not just some kind of jolly Top Gear jape - this was deadly serious.”

BBC bosses have said the number plate was merely a coincidence and was not chosen deliberately, but it led to protests in Argentina, including a demonstration by a group of war veterans outside the hotel used by the show team.

A story about their visit in the Patagonian daily newspaper Diario Jornada is headlined: “Top Gear is filming in Patagonia and there’s controversy.” The paper says: “Even though the BBC authorities asked the popular presenter Jeremy Clarkson to behave himself during his time in Argentina, he chose to use the provocative number plate H982 FKL on his Porsche, in reference to 1982 Falklands (Malvinas).” But Mr Clarkson said: “We knew absolutely nothing about the number plate, it was just an unbelievable coincidence.” This position has been echoed by Top Gear and the BBC.

The executive producer of Top Gear, Andy Wilman, said: “Top Gear production purchased three cars for a forthcoming programme; to suggest that this car was either chosen for its number plate, or that an alternative number plate was substituted for the original, is completely untrue.”

It is the latest in a series of controversies for the television show, one of the BBC’s most popular programs for foreign sales.

Britain’s broadcasting watchdog criticised the BBC in July after Clarkson used an “offensive racial term” in an episode on Burma.

Regulator Ofcom said that Clarkson’s use of the word “slope” as slang for a person of Asian origin, was potentially offensive and that the BBC had failed in its duty to viewers by broadcasting it.

The show has previously got into hot water over its unflattering depictions of Albanians, Romanians and Germans and calling Mexicans “lazy and flatulent”.