Well actually Richard Hammond hasn’t said anything about returning to Top Gear other than saying via Twitter “To be clear amidst all this talk of us ‘quitting’ or not: there’s nothing for me to ‘quit’. Not about to quit my mates anyway”. In other words Richard Hammond has officially, unofficially ruled himself out of making a Top Gear return.

This unofficially brings to an end a 13 year era where a locally made TV show about cars accidentally transformed into a global phenomenon watched by an estimated 350 million world wide audience and made stars out of Clarkson, Hammond and May. They where the thread that bonded the show together.

Meanwhile Richard Hammond has setup a YouTube channel and started a fledgling directorial career with a series of short films on… err… boredom.

James May recently made it known that he placed a £200k order for a Ferrari 458 Speciale, the reason was because all three presenters were offered a lucrative three year contract extension to continue fronting Top Gear. This would be the trios last stint before handing the reigns over to a new generation of presenters.

The contract was on the table ready to be signed pending a few last minute negotiations but Clarkson’s sacking over a cold food platter ended those contract talks abruptly.

Who ever replaces the trio will have big shoes to fill, between them they were philosophers able to put a unique spin on things where other motoring journalists would only have the inclination to say “surprisingly good”.

They were never pinned down to the marketing and PR etiquette that comes with the auto industry and were prepared to ruffle feathers if a car was basically rubbish.

You just don’t get that with many other motoring journalists who are more keen on pleasing manufactures and toeing the corporate line, regional hacks are the worst.

And the new generation of car presenters be it TV or web are too manicured in their delivery and again have one eye on toeing a rather profitable corporate line.

Its true to say that new Top Gear will die a slow and painful death just like old Top Gear did when Clarkson left the show first time over.

New Top Gear will end up like Fifth Gear or worse XCars, irritating presenters, (with the exceptional exception of Tiff Needle), who want to make a name for themselves and further their career ambitions with a well written CV and profile that appears on Linkedin.

Or Top Gear could end up like DCB, now that would be a tragedy.