Former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May are launching a website featuring content made by celebrities, professionals and motoring fans.

The project, DriveTribe, also has Top Gear producer Andy Wilman on board, but is completely separate from the new series the four are making for Amazon, which is set to debut this autumn.

The trio have linked up with Ernesto Schmidt, a tech entrepreneur who recently left Beamly, the TV app startup founded with iPlayer developer Anthony Rose.

The project is self-funded by the former Top Gear partners and Schmidt, with an initial outlay potentially in the millions. It currently has 20 staff, but is aiming to build the number up to 60 at launch.

The site, which already has Facebook, YouTube and Twitter accounts but will not be up and running until the autumn, will aim to provide specific content tailored to different parts of the car-loving community using targeting based on attributes such as age, location and interests.

Hammond compared the new platform to TripAdvisor and Twitch, the Amazon-owned site where enthusiasts can watch amateurs and professionals play videogames.

He said: “Gamers have got Twitch, travellers have got TripAdvisor and fashion fans have got, oh, something or other too. But people who are into cars have got nowhere. There’s no grand-scale online motoring community where people can meet and share video, comments, information and opinion. DriveTribe will change that. And then some.”

The founders believe there is a huge gap in the market for digital car content, despite the existence of online communities such as Car Throttle and forums build up around Top Gear, which will return to screens next month.