UPDATED: Bucks Railway Centre features on final Clarkson-era Top Gear episode

The 75-minute special was compiled from footage shot before Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond left the show and will be the last to feature the trio as presenters.

The railway centre features at the show’s start, as the three men prepare to road-test classic cars in the pouring rain.

Hammond quips that the location featuring ‘old trains’ was the perfect place to begin a journey with classic cars.

Adrian Aylward, the centre’s commercial manager, said the filming took place in the autumn of 2014, months before Clarkson’s infamous bust-up with a producer which resulted in him being sacked from the show.

Mr Aylward said: “The show phoned up and said they wanted to do a shoot. They were here for two or three hours. I think a couple of the girls here got autographs.”

The centre is not actually named in the episode but Mr Aylward said its appearance ‘caused a lot of comment on social media with various people who recognised the place’.

“You can’t pay for that sort of publicity, it’s a shame we didn’t get a mention but you can’t have everything.”

The BBC reported that last night’s show is predicted to become the highest-rated episode in Top Gear history, beating the audience of 8.35 million who tuned in to see Lewis Hamilton’s appearance in December 2007.

Writing in his column in The Sun, Clarkson said: “BBC Two is screening an edition of Top Gear cobbled together from two films that were made before I was fired.

“One of them is quite good.”

After the show he tweeted: “So sad and sorry it’s ended like this.”