Top Gear’s Paddy McGuinness had first driving lesson on public road aged NINE and crashed dad’s car as teen
PADDY McGuiness is a star of Top Gear and that could be thanks to his dad’s laid-back attitude to him learning how to drive. The comedian, 47, first got behind the wheel much younger than most and tested his driving skills at the very young age of nine. McGuinness and his fellow Top Gear presenters, […]
PADDY McGuiness is a star of Top Gear and that could be thanks to his dad’s laid-back attitude to him learning how to drive.
The comedian, 47, first got behind the wheel much younger than most and tested his driving skills at the very young age of nine.
McGuinness and his fellow Top Gear presenters, Freddie Flintoff and Chris Harris opened up about some of their earliest driving experiences.
For McGuiness he first tried driving at the age of nine on a public road and described his dad as very relaxed about him driving.
“My dad was dead laid-back. Even when I crashed one of his other cars, he was fine,” the comedian told Radio Times.
“I was 17, driving along in the Mini Metro he’d lent me and gave one of my mates a toot and a big “look at me” thumbs up — so much so, I didn’t see that the car in front had stopped.
“I rammed straight into the back of it. I thought, ‘I’m in trouble here,’ but he was so cool about it: ‘It’s just metal that can be mended. As long as you’re all right’.”
BBC announced the spectacular return of the show last month with footage of Flintoff, 43, being dragged along by the car in Ariel Nomad wearing titanium shoes.
The presenter says to the camera: “I’m just going down a runway on my feet.”
Paddy also took part in the daredevil stunt and said: “On the new series of Top Gear coming up, we hold on to the back of a car with titanium plates on our shoes and it drags us up a runway. It’s like water skiing on tarmac at 100 mph.”
Along with appearing on Top Gear’s return, McGuiness and his wife Christine will star in a documentary about the challenges they face behind the scenes in a new BBC1 documentary, Autism and our Family.
They learned in 2017 that their twins, Leo and Penelope, now seven, had the disorder.
Then last year their youngest child, four-year-old Felicity, was also diagnosed.
Like 2.8million other British families, they are still coming to terms with their situation and the one off show will see them share their personal story with viewers.
In the one-off doc, set to air this year, they will look within their own family and others to help them answer some of the many questions an autism diagnosis poses.
Paddy and Christine will meet with other parents, leading paediatricians and cutting-edge child-development experts to discover more about their children’s condition.
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Speaking recently on a podcast, Paddy said: “I felt doing a documentary about the condition and how we deal with things, hopefully people will watch and go ‘well, if he’s going through that, then I shouldn’t be ashamed or worried about getting help in’.
“He’s on telly and got money so he shouldn’t have those sorts of worries’ – but I do.
“It’s just important as much information you can get out there about anything like that is a help.”
Top Gear returns to BBC One on Sunday March 14, 9pm.