Prime Video Greenlights ‘Jeremy Grows a Car’ Special Highlighting Flax-Composite Automotive Materials

Prime Video has announced a standalone Clarkson’s Farm special titled Jeremy Grows a Car, scheduled for global release in 2027, which will document broadcaster Jeremy Clarkson attempting to build a vehicle using agricultural produce. The project centers on converting farm-grown flax into a flax-composite material, highlighting emerging sustainable alternatives to traditional carbon fiber in automotive manufacturing.

What the Diddly Squat Automotive Project Entails

Clarkson, who purchased the land for Diddly Squat Farm in 2008, is using a Jaguar F-Type V6S as the base for the build. He considers this specific model to be the "sweet spot between analogue driving thrill and modern practicality".

The build is explicitly a reaction against current automotive design trends. Clarkson stated he is frustrated by modern motoring’s "endless beeps, bongs and nanny-state technology". Instead of purchasing a new vehicle, he is manufacturing one using farm-grown materials. The interior will feature Diddly leather and wool carpets, while the structural innovation relies on cultivating flax fiber to produce a flax-composite.

He is working alongside Ian Callum CBE, the founder of the design and engineering firm CALLUM, who originally penned the F-Type, to ensure the redesigned vehicle meets the brand’s standards for style and performance.

How Flax-Composite Challenges Carbon Fiber in Manufacturing

While the television special focuses on entertainment, the underlying material science represents a significant shift in sustainable manufacturing. Carbon fiber, traditionally used in high-performance sports cars for its high strength-to-weight ratio, requires immense energy to produce and is difficult to recycle.

Flax-composite, or natural fiber composite, is created by weaving flax fibers and binding them with a resin matrix. In material science, flax-composite offers several distinct advantages over traditional petroleum-based materials:

• Specific stiffness: Flax fibers provide a stiffness comparable to glass fiber while significantly reducing overall panel weight.
• Carbon footprint: Cultivating flax absorbs CO2, and the resulting composite requires less energy to produce than carbon fiber.
• Recyclability: Biocomposites are generally easier to process at the end of a vehicle’s lifecycle compared to thermoset carbon fiber.

By attempting to grow and process this material from raw agricultural crop to finished composite panel, the project illustrates the potential supply chain integration of farming and advanced manufacturing. If the flax-composite panels meet the structural rigidity required for a vehicle like the F-Type, it provides a practical case study for scaling bio-based materials in the automotive sector.

Why Clarkson is Returning to Automotive Engineering

This special marks a deliberate pivot back to Clarkson’s original television career. For over three decades, he was best known for presenting automotive programs, a tenure that concluded in 2024 when he, James May, and Richard Hammond ended their 21-year partnership on The Grand Tour, according to Torque Cafe’s coverage of the announcement.

Since 2021, his primary television focus has been Clarkson’s Farm, a documentary series that has run for five seasons and 40 episodes since its launch, detailing the operational challenges of running an agricultural business in the Cotswolds.

The 2027 special effectively merges his two primary professional interests. It transitions the show’s format from pure agriculture to advanced manufacturing, utilizing the farm not just for food production, but as a raw material source for industrial engineering.

What the Flax-Composite Build Means for Automotive Supply Chains

The integration of agricultural biocomposites into vehicle manufacturing addresses a critical challenge in the automotive industry: reducing lifecycle emissions without compromising vehicle performance. Traditional automotive supply chains rely heavily on petroleum-based plastics and energy-intensive metals. Sourcing body panels from farmed flax shifts the supply chain upstream to agriculture.

The success of growing a functional car body from crops will depend on the yield and processing capabilities of the Diddly Squat Farm. The television special will likely document the agronomic challenges of cultivating flax specifically for composite-grade fiber, which requires different harvesting and retting processes than flax grown for linen or seed.

The one-off special will be released exclusively on Prime Video across more than 240 countries and territories in 2027, arriving in the same year as the show’s sixth season.