Jon Bentley

Jon has loved cars from a very early age and, after reading Geography at Oriel College, Oxford from 1979 to 1982, he joined the Ford Motor Company as a Graduate Trainee. In practice his job at the company’s sprawling headquarters in Warley, Essex proved rather uninteresting - tasks like counting the number of windscreen wipers required every day in Köln. After a year or so, he left to join the BBC’s Top Gear programme as a researcher.

He went on to become Producer and Executive Producer of the show between 1987 and 1999, while also producing many other motoring programmes including the classic car series The Car’s the Star. Though he left the BBC to go freelance in 1999, he later had a corner named after him on the Top Gear test track.

In 2002, after spells as a producer with ITV and The Natural History Unit, Jon launched Fifth Gear for Channel Five and produced the show until 2004 when he joined The Gadget Show as a presenter. This gave him the opportunity to indulge another childhood passion - technology. He used to repair TVs, build radios and practise old-fashioned chemical photography as a youth. Jon is now established as the show’s main gadget reviewer. The 37th series of the programme is currently in production.

When not presenting Jon enjoys writing. In 2019 Atlantic Books published his first book, Autopia: The Future of Cars, and he contributes regularly to Amateur Photographer magazine.