Top Gear: First Photos of Smashed Car as Jeremy Clarkson Flees Argentina Over Falklands Number Plate

This is the car registration plate which has forced the Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson and his fellow stars to flee Argentina.

Clarkson and his fellow presenters Richard Hammond and James May have had to leave the country after the plate reportedly enraged locals.

It contains the digits 82 and the letters 'FKL.' Britain and Argentina went to war over the Falklands islands in 1982 and the South American nation lost.

An angry mob took out their anger at the plate by stoning the car, causing visible damage and apparently prompting the team to quit the country.

The plate drew a predictably angry reaction in the Argentine press, where it has been interpreted as a provocative and goading gesture.

Responding to criticism, the BBC said the number plate was an "absolute coincidence." The DVLA confirmed it was registered plate, reported the Telegraph.

Top Gear producer Andy Wilman, said: "To suggest that this car was either chosen for its number plate, or that an alternative number plate was substituted for the original, is completely untrue."

The Top Gear team have a reputation for poking fun at foreign cultures on film, having previously annoyed locals in America's deep south and in India. Clarkson had to apologise after calling a Burmese person a 'slope' - a derogatory slang term.