PIC: The letter the new Top Gear host wrote about Jeremy Clarkson back in the 90s

The new Top Gear team is a mix of huge names and some lesser lights who are well-known in motoring circles.

Chris Harris falls into the latter category, but he undoubtedly knows his stuff and has received warm congratulations from plenty of fans of his work on YouTube series 'Chris Harris on Cars'. And any newcomers reading up on the 40-year-old will have learned that he's been in the game for some time - even backing Jeremy Clarkson himself when the former Top Gear host left a different job back in the 1990s. Before his TV career took off, Clarkson wrote for Performance Car magazine, and by the sounds of it he was just as brash then as in his BBC days. And Harris was a fan back then, writing into the magazine to describe it as 'a sad day' when Clarkson left - ostensibly in response to some particularly vocal criticism from a reader.

'The man is huge, perhaps too offensive, too outspoken, and a little antagonistic, but he entertains and is a very vivid character' Harris wrote. 'The suppression of a character like Clarkson is identical to the loss of adventurous car designers - as he said himself recently, cars are becoming blander. For God's sake don't let journalism go the same way.'

You can read the full letter below. https://twitter.com/harrismonkey/status/697696946702704640