The Grand Tour: Top Gear trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May formally dissolve their company

James May, Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond have formally signed off on dissolving their production company, W. Chump and Sons, according to the Daily Mail. The company this week filed three documents with Companies House - declaring solvency, appointing a liquidator and making a “special resolution to wind up”.

May had previously confirmed that an episode of The Grand Tour, filmed in Zimbabwe and set to air in September this year, would be the series’ last. The hit Amazon series began in 2015 after the trio left Top Gear. Although there had often been rumoured tensions between the three, they had all shared the screen together since 2003.

During a live recording of The Today Podcast in June, May told the hosts that it was “unlikely” he would record another motoring TV series with Clarkson and Hammond. “We’ve done it for nearly 22 years – a lot longer than we thought we would. I thought, when I started doing it in 2003 or 2004, that this was a bit of a laugh. Maybe it’ll last a few years... here we are, grey and wizened and sagging. And we’ve only just stopped doing it. It’s quite remarkable.”

Clarkson - who also stars in another hugely popular Amazon series about his farm in the Cotswolds, Clarkson’s Farm - told The Times that they had been running out of ideas for The Grand Tour. “I’ve driven cars higher than anyone else and further north than anyone else. We’ve done everything you can do with a car. When we had meetings about what to do next, people just threw their arms in the air,” he said.

The show, which often saw the team completing grand road trips in far-flung destinations, was also “immensely physical”, he added, and much more difficult “when you’re unfit and fat and old, which I am”.

Clarkson and producer Andy Wilman revived long-running British motoring TV show Top Gear in a new format in 2002, where it went on to become a smash hit for the BBC. Initially focused on car reviews, it later grew to feature celebrity guests and quirky driving races and challenges, gaining it a huge following - with throngs clamouring to attend its live recordings at the Dunsfold Aerodrome.

Clarkson was eventually suspended from the show in 2015 for punching a producer, the BBC reports, and the broadcaster opted not to renew his contract. May and Hammond left with him, and the trio were quickly scooped up by Amazon Video - where they created the initially-similar series The Grand Tour, which later took on a more international focus.