Former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has added ‘people who drive manual cars’ to the list of people he has maligned – although he only maligned them a bit.

He called motorists without automatic transmissions "mad" in his latest column for The Sunday Times. The notion that automatic gearboxes are superior to manuals came to the former BBC employee while stuck in traffic for more than two hours.

Clarkson wrote: "'Why,' I wailed inwardly, 'would anyone ever buy a car with a manual gearbox these days?' It's like saying, 'I don't need a television with a remote control. I'm perfectly capable of walking over to it and changing the channel myself.'"

While he did say manuals were good for countryside jaunts and on the racetrack, using one "on the Oxford ring road… is just annoying."

The comments were part of a review of the VW Touran, which he calls "a sensible family car to move you around while you wait to die."

Clarkson argues that automatics are no longer the petrol guzzlers they once were. "Flappy-paddle gearboxes now are sublime. Fast. Easy. Rewarding. Nice."

But in terms of sales, manuals are still far more popular than automatics, as the journalist noted: "Yes, automatics in whatever form are becoming more popular, but even so, more than 70 per cent of all cars sold in Britain have manual gearboxes. That means more than 70 per cent of Britain's car drivers are mad."

Clarkson's opinions remain of interest to the British public, as the former Top Gear presenter’s new Amazon car show draws ever closer.

But the competition in the automotive TV show business is hot at the moment. The BBC recently announced it was hiring Matt le Blanc to host the new-look Top Gear, alongside Chris Evans.