The idiot producers were asking for it. That’s like driving through Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Northern Ireland making fun of the Troubles or wearing a white robe and hood in Harlem — you’re needlessly trying to provoke a fight just to get better TV ratings.
I like the show but Clarkson deliberately pokes his finger into the eyes of the host countries. There is no way that the license plate was a bizarre chance - they selected it as a provocation and frankly, even though I sided with the Brits on the Falklands War, this was a deliberate provocation at the port where the General Belgrano battleship sailed and was sunk with the loss of 300+ Argentinian young men. I have seen shows where Clarkson drove through the South and made the most astonishing insults of his hosts, deprecating their intelligence and religious beliefs; another time he was throwing verbal mud at Vietnam War veterans. When you want to run your mouth and say offensive things, particularly in someone’s home country where you are a guest, don’t expect the hosts not to take offense and then bawl for help when they strike back.
How were they asking for it?. it was a license plate.. H982 FLK.. as far as i can tell its not a vanity plate ..it just a number. . It a remote stretch to say in relates to that war
They did something like that in a US special. Driving in the deep South with cars painted with slogans designed to rile up the local population. It worked.