Quentin Willson, the former Top Gear and Fifth Gear television presenter, has died aged 68 following a short battle with lung cancer.
Willson co-hosted the original version of Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson from 1991 and, after the format was cancelled in 2001, left the BBC to present Channel 5’s rival motoring programme Fifth Gear.
In a statement, Willson’s publicist confirmed the motoring journalist had “passed away peacefully surrounded by his family” on Saturday.
His family described Willson as a “true national treasure”, who “brought the joy of motoring, from combustion to electric, into our living rooms”.
His family said that Quentin Willson ‘brought the joy of motoring, from combustion to electric, into our living rooms’ – John Green
It added: “He helped shape the original Top Gear as one of its first hosts, working alongside Jeremy Clarkson and the team who took the pioneering show global. He went on to front Fifth Gear and still holds the dubious honour of Strictly Come Dancing’s lowest score in history.”
In recent years, Willson had also been a champion of EVs as part of his FairCharge campaign, which they said “saved UK consumers a fortune by helping to freeze fuel duty”.
“Over £100bn in fresh taxation was prevented by the campaign, a real consumer win by a true consumer champion.”
Top Gear first launched on the BBC in 1977, with Willson offering his expertise as the used-car expert from 1991.
Amid bad ratings after Clarkson left the show in 1999, the BBC cancelled the long-running motoring show before it was revived in 2002, with Clarkson and Richard Hamond as hosts, before James May rejoined in 2003.
Despite a revised line-up after Clarkson, May and Hammond departed in 2015, the show was not renewed after a high-speed crash almost killed cricketer turned presenter Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff.
Quentin Willson presented Top Gear for a decade – Ian Derry
Earlier this year, Willson said television bosses would never commission a show like Top Gear again, mostly because of safety concerns.
“We were very lucky to have lived through this wonderful golden age of cars and car programmes because you couldn’t make them now,” he told Metro.
“It wouldn’t get screened, and people aren’t as interested… or television commissioners aren’t as interested in cars as they were then. It was a lovely time to make a TV programme about cars at a time when cars were much more socially acceptable than now.”
Willson is survived by his wife Michaela, children, Mercedes, Max and Mini and three grandchildren, Saskia, Xander and Roxana.
The statement on behalf of the family read: “While messages of condolence are warmly appreciated, the family asks that their privacy be respected at this difficult time.
“Funeral arrangements will be announced in due course.
“The void he has left can never be filled. His knowledge was not just learned but lived; a library of experience now beyond our reach.”
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