Keanu Reeves tipped as Top Gear contender by Jonathan Ross: 'He's got petrol instead of blood!'

Boris Johnson, Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage are just a few of the slightly more unusual contenders pipped to take on the Top Gear baton from sacked presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

Now Keanu Reeves is the latest candidate to be put forward for the coveted role by presenter Jonathon Ross, who claims the Canadian actor has petrol in his veins instead of blood.

Reeves joined Russell Brand as a guest in the Jonathan Ross Show, where he launched into a long-winded explanation about a road trip he embarked on after dropping out of high school.

“I left home when I was 17, 18, dropped out of high school, was working as an actor and other part time jobs and eventually I got in the car and drove from Toronto and Los Angeles… We had a little road trip,” The Matrix star said.

“It was the first car I ever had, it was a 1969 122 Volvo British racing green and its nickname was ‘Dumpy’- it had bricks under the chairs and holes in the floor. I had 6’ by 9’ speakers with long wires and I could put them on the roof and we would go to places and we would turn the music on and just go!”

His excitement led Ross to tell the audience: “I think we’ve just found the new host of Top Gear ladies and gentleman! I think he’s got petrol instead of blood!”

Brand was also unusually reserved about Clarkson, just days after releasing a bizarre spoof featuring him as the new presenter of Top Gear, during which he played ‘eeny, meeny, miney, mo’ between a vehicle and a bicycle, and ‘punched’ a show producer in the face for failing for provide him with a vegan meal.

Brand told Ross some people would consider Clarkson a representation of “an unreconstructed male”, explaining: “At a time when people go ‘ah political correctness has gone mad, you can’t say anything, you can’t do anything’ - well Jeremy Clarkson, he gets out there and says it.

“Now I’ve seen those TV shows, that Top Gear and all that stuff, really good telly, he’s really good at that and I met him and I’ve seen him as a human being. He’s got a glistening light in his eye, he was very lovely but he said a lot of things in the past that I think were a bit rude.”

He then went on to agree that Clarkson did “overstep, clearly, a boundary”, but added: “He can go anywhere in the world and talk about cars, people love the cars, he’s an individualistic man, it’s an individualistic product.”