The executive producer who helped reinvent Top Gear has quit

Another one bites the dust. Top Gear's executive producer has quit the motoring show following the termination of frontman Jeremy Clarkson's contract with the BBC last month.

Andy Wilman, who is an old friend of Clarkson and was responsible for reinvigorating the now widely successful show in 2002, had previously denied he was leaving the production team after he sent an email to the Top Gear crew with the subject line "au revoir," earlier this month.

In the email, Wilman wrote: "Our stint as guardians of Top Gear was a good one, but we were only part of the show's history, not the whole of it."

The producer's departure adds fuel to rumours that Clarkson is intending to create another motoring show away from the BBC, after he wrote "I have lost my baby but I shall create another," in his weekly column in The Sunday Times.

James May also said he would not want to return to Top Gear without co-hosts Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson, however, he tweeted shortly afterwards saying he has not quit the BBC. A rep for the presenter told the Press Association that conversations regarding the future of Top Gear are ongoing, and that May is very much "involved in those conversations."

I have not quit the BBC, just so you know.

- James May (@MrJamesMay) April 23, 2015