Ahead of the World Cup semi-final between England and Argentina, a controversial Top Gear episode from 2014 has resurfaced online, reigniting debates about whether Jeremy Clarkson deliberately provoked Argentinians with a license plate referencing the Falklands War.
The Patagonia Special and the License Plate Controversy
The episode in question is the Patagonia Special, which saw Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May drive across Chile and Argentina. The controversy centered on Clarkson's Porsche, which bore the license plate H982 FKL. Critics alleged this was a deliberate reference to the Falklands War, which took place in 1982. The Top Gear crew was forced to flee Argentina after being pelted with stones by protesters while driving toward the Chilean border.
Clarkson and the crew have consistently maintained that the number plate was random and not a deliberate reference. Writing in The Sun at the time, Clarkson described the incident as 'the most terrifying thing I’ve ever been involved in,' insisting it was 'not just some kind of jolly Top Gear jape – this was deadly serious.'
Resurgence Ahead of the World Cup
The episode resurfaced after X user @aggzzx shared a screenshot from the Patagonia Special with the caption 'Locked in to some essential pre-match viewing.' The post has since garnered 16,000 likes and sparked widespread discussion online about whether Clarkson intended to provoke Argentinians.
User @Marksism__ commented: 'The hilarious thing about this is that Clarkson genuinely did not mean to wind them up.' However, @Oakely_Dokely countered: 'Yeah, I am not buying that he didn’t notice the number plate. Not a chance.' @NafonClover claimed that 'if you look up that plate you will find that it has been with the car since it was manufactured.' Others suggested the crew didn't plan for the plate but stuck with it once they saw the car in Chile.
@WFC_Will noted: 'All of them still pretend it was an accident, which is a bit weird. Obviously they didn’t go out of their way to find a car with a Falklands-related number plate, but they obviously thought it was funny once they happened to come across it.' @mallard1938 agreed, writing: 'The licence plate they knew might be a bit controversial, but they only noticed it after they got there, so to effectively delay and spend thousands to rebook everything in a few months would have been silly. Of course they weren’t to know, but it wasn’t quite Clarkson’s fault.'
@monarchofrymden offered a nuanced perspective: 'I hate Clarkson even if he did intend to wind them up, that’s not an excuse to try to murder the Top Gear crew.'
BBC Investigation and Aftermath
In 2015, the BBC concluded an investigation into the number plate, ruling that it was not a deliberate reference to the Falklands War, and no further action was taken. The Top Gear Patagonia Special is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
