March 17, 2025
Jeremy Clarkson took a sharp jab at Will Smith in a resurfaced Top Gear clip, poking fun at the Hollywood star’s lyrics and signature rap style.
For the unversed, in 2015, Smith appeared on Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment of Top Gear with Margot Robbie before their movie Focus was released.
At the show, Clarkson, then 54, questioned Smith’s taste in cars by asking, “What was your first car?”
Smith answered, “A candy apple red [Chevrolet] IROC-Z, a Camaro. Apparently, you don’t have those here,” to which the host quickly responded, “No, we have… what’s the word? Er, taste.”
Notably, the Camaro IROC-Z was a muscle car made in the U.S. between 1982 and 1992.
Clarkson then quipped, “I was thinking, ‘Well, maybe this would indicate you don’t know anything about cars.’ Then I started to look into some of the lyrics.”
He added, “In a song called Getting Jiggy With It...”
Smith interrupted, joking about how he said the song title: “I don’t recognize that one.”
Clarkson kept going: “It goes, ‘850iS...’”
The Bad Boys star jumped in, “850iS if you need a lift...”
Clarkson continued, “‘...Who’s the kid in the drop?’ Now drop, I presume, means drop top.”
Smith confirmed, “Drop top, yes.”
Clarkson then said, “They never did a drop top 850. It’s a small problem.”
The big crowd watching Top Gear started laughing and Smith replied, “No, no, hold on. See now, he thinks he knows everything. In the United States, we do a thing where we customize our cars.”
Although the audience enjoyed the joke, Smith was actually right. The BMW 850i did have some custom versions where people added a convertible top.