Four months after Jeremy Clarkson was officially dropped from Top Gear following an altercation over on-set catering provisions, Amazon has announced a new Prime Video show featuring Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.
It could be a huge boost for Amazon's streaming video service, which has enjoyed a limited amount of success so far – the award-winning Transparent has been the pick of the Amazon bunch but Netflix has been getting most of the headlines (and subscribers).
A Top Gear clone could change all that. Clarkson's last appearance on the BBC show attracted an audience of 5.3 million viewers, and a large chunk of those are just as interested in the presenters as the cars. Previously, it was rumoured that Netflix was interested in taking the show on.
The Amazon Prime spaceship
We don't know much about the new show, so you'll have to sign up to Amazon's various social media channels for updates over the next year. Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman is also making the switch, and the new programme is set to air in 2016.
"I feel like I've climbed out of a bi-plane and into a spaceship," was the official press comment offered up by Jeremy Clarkson – a telling comment on the battle between old and new media institutions, or just a convenient soundbite?
The Top Gear name will stay with the BBC of course, with Chris Evans one of the new presenters. We don't yet know what Amazon's new show is called, but we're crossing our fingers that it's not #Drive2Prime, the hashtag used with the announcement.
