Matt LeBlanc’s unscheduled Top Gear stop drives fans wild!

(Image credit: BBC World Wide/Mark Yeoman)

Matt LeBlanc made new friends when the car he was driving broke down while filming the first episode of the new series of Top Gear!

It reads like a scene from a comedy but it’s all true. While filming scenes for the new look Top Gear with co-host Chris Evans - in a reliant robin decorated in Stars and Stripes – the three-wheeled car broke down.

Onlookers in Cannock, Staffordshire were stunned at first, but then delighted, as Matt, 48, and Chris, 49, made themselves available for seflies. They had been filming a London to Blackpool challenge for the show when they forced to make the unscheduled comfort break

The new-format Top Gear debuts on BBC2 in May this year, with a line-up of seven new presenters. Other hosts include Eddie Jordan, Rory Reid, Chris Harris, Sabine Schmitz and, of course, Stig.

Top Gear has been running since 1977, but recently courted controversy when now-sacked presenter Jeremy Clarkson was accused of several inappropriate comments. He was dismissed by the BBC in March 2015 when it emerged he had assaulted producer Oisin Tymon over a disagreement about catering.

Jeremy Clarkson and his former Top Gear co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May are currently working on an untitled motoring show for Amazon Video.

Meanwhile, on Twitter Chris Evans as confirmed he and Matt made it Blackpool today, despite the small bump in the road yesterday evening…

Blackpool is so brilliantly British today. @Matt_LeBlanc coping well though. Too well me thinks. Jeep vs Land Rover. Willys vs Series 1

— Chris Evans (@achrisevans) February 20, 2016