Jeremy Clarkson wanted to 'kill' beloved children's presenter Johnny Morris - EXCLUSIVE

Jeremy Clarkson may have made plenty of enemies over the years but the person he holds the biggest grudge for is the late BBC ‘talking animal’ legend.

Asked who he’d like to kill, Clarkson said: ‘I wanted to kill Johnny Morris the old animal man, but he’s died anyway. He told me to bugger off when I was four and I asked for his autograph.

‘He’s an unusual person to not like because everyone else really liked him but I hated him.

‘I always think that there are going to be kids I’ve knocked back for an autograph who are going to grow up with a deep-seated hatred of me.

‘And when it’s announced on the radio that I’ve died, they’re going to Whoop!

‘There will be a collective cheer around the country when I drop dead…’

Clarkson was speaking at the launch of his latest venture, DriveTribe, a portal for petrolheads launched with his co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May.

DriveTribe has already attracted almost £5million of backing from 21^st Century Fox.

The trio hope the site will become a must-see for car fans everywhere. It allows users to set up ‘tribes’ to discuss anything at all about cars.

Inevitably, what really sets these forums apart from other car fansites is the presence of Clarkson, Hammond and May, whose new show, The Grand Tour, is currently breaking records on Amazon, featuring the fastest cars, the inevitable challenges and even the odd celebrity ‘death’.

Their own DriveTribe channels are attracting by far the biggest following. Clarkson’s – it’s called Jeremy Clarkson’s Tribe, just in case you were in any doubt – has more than a hundred thousand followers a day after the official launch; Hammond’s Fob Jockeys and James May’s Carbolics each have almost 90,000.

With the demands of their Amazon adventures and DriveTribe, the three amigos are having to spend an inordinate time together.

May said: ‘On average, over the last five months, there’s only been one day a week at most where I haven’t seen them, or one of them, and there probably hasn’t been a day at all where I haven’t communicated with them in some way.

‘It’s horrific! Bearing in mind that we don’t even like each other…

‘I don’t think the three of us would be mates if we were all at sixth-form college or university together.

‘There’s camaraderie but it’s creatively fuelled by a little nugget of loathing.

‘I don’t think that’s a secret any more – people always say it’s like a buddy movie but it’s not. We’ll call it creative tension.

‘I think that’s why some attempts to do things in the style of us three – well, in the old days when we were on Top Gear, people would try to do a programme about something else or a corporate event and they try to do it in a Top Gear style. They’d think it was just a matter of bashing off a few of our regular cliches but it’s a much more complicated, fragile thing than that.’

While May conceded that the trio’s TV shows could end up being like Last Of The Summer Wine with cars (if they’re not already), he saw a different future for DriveTribe, which he described as the Car Bores’ Café.

Yes, DriveTribe is for hardcore car fans, who may be into one tiny aspect of cars such as carburettor rebuilding but it’s also targeting more general petrolheads. And, as all three presenters said, there could even be ‘I hate cars’ tribes.

There could certainly be an ‘I hate Jeremy tribe’.

Asked if there was a celebrity he’d like to dispatch, May said: ‘Can I kill Jeremy Clarkson? He’s fairly well know globally. I hear he could do with a comedy death.’