Top Gear Predictions: When Clarkson & May Got It All Wrong

Look, we all love Jeremy Clarkson's dramatic proclamations and James May's know-it-all confidence, but man, did these guys whiff on some major predictions during their Top Gear days. After 13 years of bold claims about where cars were headed, some of their crystal ball moments turned out to be... well, let's just say they probably shouldn't quit their day jobs to become fortune tellers.

That Time Clarkson Thought Big Engines Were Done For

Remember that absolutely gorgeous Aston Martin V12 Vantage review from 2009? Pure automotive poetry. But between all the swooning over exhaust notes and scenic mountain roads, Clarkson dropped this downer: massive engines like this were basically dead meat.

Yeah, about that. The guy couldn't have been more wrong if he tried. The next decade was like Christmas morning for horsepower junkies. Lexus went completely nuts with the LFA's screaming V10, Lamborghini kept churning out V12s like they were going out of style, and Aston Martin literally made another V12 Vantage just two years later. Whoops.

May's Hydrogen Hype Train

Back in 2008, James May drove the Honda FCX Clarity and basically lost his mind. Called it the most important car in a century and went on this whole spiel about how hydrogen was obviously the future because electric cars with their crappy batteries were never gonna cut it.

Well, that aged like a fine milk. While Honda's hydrogen experiment quietly disappeared into the void, Tesla showed up and basically said "hold my beer" to the entire auto industry. Now you can't drive five minutes in California without seeing a Model 3, and charging stations are popping up faster than Starbucks locations.

The Great V12 Death Prediction

Fast forward to 2012, and there's Clarkson again, this time in Italy with some serious supercars. He's hammering the Lamborghini Aventador around and casually mentions that its V12 is probably the last one ever built.

Ferrari must've been watching that episode and laughing their asses off, because they dropped the F12 with its own monster V12 before the year was even over. And guess what? You can still walk into a dealership today and buy cars with twelve cylinders. The Revuelto, the Valkyrie, some absolutely bonkers Pagani creations – they're all still out there making beautiful noise.

The Chinese Car Revolution That Was... Early

Okay, this one's kinda tricky. May predicted back in 2012 that everyone would be driving Chinese cars within five years. By 2017? Not so much. Chinese brands were still pretty much invisible in American driveways.

But here's the thing – the guy wasn't completely wrong, just impatient. Chinese companies have quietly become huge players in the EV game, and their tech is legit competitive now. They're undercutting traditional automakers left and right. So maybe May was just a decade early rather than completely off base.

Still counts as wrong though.