"(RICHARD) If you're listening to my voice, you'll have bought the new "Top Gear" DVD and you're in for a great time in front of the telly." "We've gathered together some of our classic films, including car versus bobsleigh," "the Apache and Lotus shoot-out..." "Ohh!" "...the great Aston Martin race, the pick-up destruction" " and the 747 blowback." " Crikeyl" "We'll also reveal the secrets of how to be a "Top Gear"presenter." "And we'll relive some of the Stig's finest moments, along with some of our un-finest." "A lot of that is quite difficult to follow." "(STUMBLES OVER WORDS) See?" "(RICHARD) Enjoy." "Mr J Sampson in Emmerdale has six Swaledales, all ewes, ready to go." "Michael Dodds in Ambleside, four blue-faced Leicesters, ready to go." "Chris Muckle in Grisdale, five Border Leicesters." "And finally Mr L Kyle of Sykes Farm, Crummock, has five Jacob ewes ready to go now." "When you start out in radio and TV, things don't always work out the way you'd hoped." "This was my first job on Radio Cumbria, reading out the names for half an hour of lambs up for adoption by local farmers." "Not what you'd call the best job in the world." "Now, "Top Gear", that's definitely a bit of a step up." "Where else does a day in the office involve two miles of deserted beach and three hugely powerful sports cars?" "We've got the business jet and the Tornado." "Where's Hammond and the Messerschmidt?" " You did say 10am, didn't you?" " Yeah." "Where the hell is he, then?" "(JEREMY) Eventually he stopped fooling on the Welsh mountains and joined us at one of the most remarkable places in the British Isles." "Pendine Sands." "Here we are, all three cars together on this enormous playground." "Now we must decide which is best." "First we learn how hard it is to drive a powerful rear-drive car on wet sand." "They just go sideways, constantly." "After many hours of arduous fun - I mean practice - we worked out that the Jag and the Porsche were a riot." "And the BMW was a bit like watching your dad trying to dance." "Strewth." "I'm giving this up." "This is lethal." "It's not bad, but it simply doesn't have the exuberance of the Jaguar or the poise of the Porsche." "However, maybe things would be different in a straight-line drag race." "This will be a drag race with a difference." "There's so little traction on the beach that you could spin in a straight line." "I'm fairly sure at least one of us will cross the line either backwards or upside down." "And we're off." "The Porsche's rear engine gave it better traction off the line, but the sheer power of the Jag meant it couldn't pull out much of a lead." "That Porsche is completely planted." "It moves around a lot as you accelerate." "And the BMW, that was nowhere." "Come on, car." "Go in a straight line." "This isn't so much a test of how fast the car goes, but how able you are to hold it in a straight line on what feels more like sheet ice." "I can feel it snatching and grabbing as it gets grip and then loses it." "Jag is in the lead." "Aaargh!" "(SHOUTING)" "Hammond beat me going backwards." "(JEREMY) Let's not forget that the BMW is the most spacious car here, with the largest rear seats and biggest boot." "It's also the cheapest by £6,000 and it will look good in the Pringle-ised world of your local golf club." "Here, though, at Britain's birthplace of speed, it is completely outclassed." "To find out if my colleagues shared this view, we peeled off for a cup of tea." "So, chaps, if it were your money, you had to go out and buy one of those cars, big two-door coupé, what's it gonna be?" "For its drive, and it is so far ahead of the Jaguar, I'd have to have the 911." "I'm not really a 911 person, but I drive that car and I think, "This is really special."" "But I'd have the Jag." "It's a huge car." "You're sitting in a tiny cabin." "You're using an immense amount of fuel but it's all yours." "The worry for me would be if you bought the 911, at some point you'll be on a country road driving, you'll look in your mirror, see one of those Jags and think, "No!"" "I'll tell you what I think is interesting here." " We haven't discussed the BMW." " It's boring." "It's like Munich, actually." "You go to Munich, you get a fantastic hotel, it looks great, the services are good, the food's great, you come home and you never think, "I wish I was still in Munich."" " It leaves you feeling completely cold." " There's no magic." " Completely boring." "You'd have the Jag." " The Jag." " 911." " So go on." "Casting vote." "You've got to spend money on one." "Logic dictates I buy the Porsche." " It does?" " But I wouldn't." " You'd go for the Jag." " I've just made my mind up." " I can totally see why." " It is magnificent." "It's a majority verdict and it's the Jag." "I wish it had more space." "I wish it had a limited slip differential." "I wish all the buttons made sense." "But you would never tire of the way it goes from 80, 90, 100, 110." "It's like you've got this huge supercharger with a small V8 shoved on the back as a sort of afterthought." "(JEREMY) That's what it's all about with cars like this." "Excitement." "And it's excitement that the Jag delivers... in spades." "It may not do much to get baby lambs adopted, but "Top Gear" is definitely the best job in the world." "And this is the heart of it, the "Top Gear" bunker, at a secret location in somewhere or other." "This is where we plot and plan and keep souvenirs from past adventures." "Look." "This is the sand from my pants on Pendine." "(JAMES)... his car out." "Think of this as Q's workshop... without the money or the gadgets or the technical expertise." "It may be the best job in the world, but it's not an easy one to get." "The "Top Gear" presenter must possess many skills if they're to make the grade." "Naturally, an innate sense of style is important." "But another vital quality is you must be brave." "(RICHARD) This is Lillehammer in Norway, the setting for the 1994 Winter Olympics." "It's got one of the most formidable bobsleigh runs in the world." "A downhill course of twists and turns stretching for almost two kilometres." "Even so, a crack bobsleigh team can get down this run in just under a minute, with the bobsleigh itself hitting 80mph." "That speed comes at a price for the passengers because each member of the team is subjected to cornering forces of 5G, more than an F1 driver suffers." "To do this you'd have to be brave, stupid or just desperate to get on the television." "I'll be sitting here in the middle." "To make things even more arduous, we're gonna have a race." "We've come to Lillehammer because alongside the bobsleigh run is this road." "They start in the same place, run down the hill and finish in the same place." "The road is almost exactly the same length as the bob run, and like the bob run it's slippery, dangerous and full of difficult corners." "It requires a special vehicle." "So that's what we've got." "It's a Mitsubishi Evo world rally car with a 300 horsepower turbocharged engine, four-wheel drive and studded tyres." "That's the challenge." "Can the rally car beat the bobsleigh?" "I think it can, although Hammond tells me it definitely can't." "This is my bobsleigh run." "It wiggles down and finishes there." "This is the road, which is in green." "It wiggles up there but finishes in exactly the same place." "But my bobsleigh can get from there all the way down in less than a minute." "You've had it." "All you've got to get from there to there is gravity." "I've got 300 horsepower and a huge turbocharger and 420 spikes in each tyre and gravity to get down there." "But my bobsleigh was custom-built for going on ice." "Your car has been adapted with clever tyres." "You've got tights." "I can't take lectures on physics from a man in tights." " I am aware..." " Dancing, yes." "Physics, no." "(JAMES) But the bob is going to be hard to beat." "Which kind of counts me out for driving the car." "So instead we've got Henning Solberg, the Norwegian national rally champion." "One, two, three... (RICHARD) The bobsleigh's chance of victory depends on how good our start is." "That means intense preparation for me and the Norwegian bobsleigh team." "While we practise running, the driver visualises the course in his head." "All of this provided much merriment for the bone-idle May." "Are you warming up?" "I'm warming up as well." "I couldn't see the funny side of it because I was worried about letting the team down." "Any time you lose here, a second, is multiplied by three at the bottom, so that's three seconds." "I was also worried about whether my body would cope." "The key thing is, as you go into the corners, to get a lot of breath in, because that holds your body up when you're subjected to G-forces." "Apparently in a couple of places down there it hits 6.5G." "A driver told me he's been doing this six years and he's 3cm shorter." "I can't afford to lose 3cm." "James was strapped in and I was ready to run." "Our ace rally driver could hardly speak any English, but that didn't stop James giving him a patronising British pep talk." "Right, Henning, it's the reputation of internal combustion resting on your shoulders for the next minute or so." "(JAMES) I was going to time the car with my stopwatch and Hammond's bob would be timed by the course officials." "This was it." "You nutter!" "We're starting to turn." "Ooh, that's a turn." "That's a turn." "6-G in corners." "That's three of them." "(JAMES) Two kilometres on ice in a minute." "Boy, has Henning got it all to do." "Ooh, that's a large bump on my head." "(BLEEP)" "(RICHARD) The bob may have started slow, but it was getting faster and faster and these guys never use the brakes." "Ohh!" "There's a corner coming up." "That's one." "And there's another." "(JAMES) At mid-point, 1,000 metres in, it was anybody's guess." "I've got to suck in air." "Ohh!" "(JAMES) Henning was just awesome." "You can't go this fast on ice." "(BLEEP)" "He hit the side." "He's going to kill us." "Aaargh!" "I don't wanna die in tights!" "59.68." "Did we win?" "What did he do?" "Strewth!" "I can't..." "I'm broken." " What have you done it in?" " 59.68." "Come on." "Come on, come on." "One minute, two seconds 24." "We won!" "Hey!" "The boys!" "I hope I didn't slow you up too much." "That was fantastic." "We did it." "That really was something." "Awesome." "Yes!" "No stand-ins, no stunt doubles round here." "You must have the heart of a lion, or at least something bigger than a gerbil." "Another important quality is "think big"." "That's exactly what happened when James and I had an epic race with Jeremy from our studios here in Guildford all the way down to Monte Carlo." "Us on a train, him in an Aston Martin, last one there's a wettie." "OK, the rules of this are very simple." "They can't use any form of car, I can't use any form of train." "The winner is the first one to the Café de Paris, Casino Square, Monte Carlo." "See you, chaps." "(HORN)" "He'll get to the end of the lane before us." "Once we're on that train, there is no way that car can beat us." "It is impossible." "In an ordinary car, I agree, it may well be impossible." "But this is no ordinary car." "The old DB7, that was just a Jag in drag." "It was an XJS in a party frock." "This is completely different." "It's made in a brand-new factory using space-age materials and sci-fi production techniques." " Is that heavy?" " Yeah." " No, I mean really heavy." " Yeah." "You get a sense of that modern-ness in here." "I've got loads more space than you got in the DB7." "Look at the dash." "It's aluminium, it's pale wood." "You get dials like you get on a techno marine watch." "You get a split-screen sat nav, hands-free phone." "It's as bang up-to-date and as modern and as clean and as crisp as the departure lounge at a Swiss airport." "By the time the boys had walked the two miles to the bus stop, I'd covered 40." "Everything was going fine until I reached the outskirts of Dover, where I hit traffic." "Get out of my way, you foolish lorry!" "Why are you cluttering up our roads with Latvian milk?" " Money?" " Two to Guildford, please." " £5.60, please." " £5.60?" "!" "If I don't catch this ten o'clock ferry, I'm out of the race." "I perfected this design on the school bus." "Three, two, one, throw." "(HORN BLARING)" " Thank you very much." " That was excellent." "Yes!" "We are in business." "I'm about to get on the Seacat, which will get me to France in 60 minutes." "Before I get on, I have one concern about the car." "It is spectacularly good-looking." "And it is very modern." "But in my lifetime Astons have been very British cars, big, heavy, dark, green, like jet-propelled stately homes, Merlin engine shire horses, and I'm not sure this is." "It may be a good car, it may well be a great car, but is it an Aston?" " (JAMES) Where are you?" " At the docks, about to get on the boat." " He's at the docks." " Where are you?" " In Guildford station." " You're in Guildford, I'm at the Channel." "Give it a few hours and we'll be at least 150 miles ahead." " I'm gonna win this." " No." "A car cannot beat the train in France." "They still think they're gonna win." " Sorry." " That's what I call moving!" " What a nice day." " It is a gorgeous day." "Look at that!" "I wonder where they are now." " Can I help you, sir?" " I'm all right, really." "Right, it's quarter past 11 UK time, which means Jeremy has just driven off the Seacat." "We're only at London Waterloo, but we're going onto the Eurostar all the way to Paris." "This is where we catch up." "(JEREMY) At last, the French motorways." "Now I can really open the taps and find out if the DB9 is a proper Aston." "This car absolutely flies." "It's got a six-litre V12 engine that develops 460 brake horsepower." "It's actually more powerful per ton than a Vanquish." "That means it does 0 to 60 in four and a half seconds." "Top speed, 190." "I'm trying to say it's definitely got the power of an Aston." "It also makes a fabulous noise." " Listen to that." " (ENGINE ROARING)" "This is how you beat the French, shouting at them." "Aaah!" "But when you settle down to a cruise, it stops shouting." "It starts to sing a gentle ballad." "Naturally, being an Aston, it wasn't long before it attracted some attention." "(SIREN)" " May." " Yes, hello, Jeremy." "I've got the gendarmes just all over me." "I think he's been nicked by the rozzers." " Have they stopped you?" " They come alongside and go, "Quicker!"" "You're making it up." "This is the great thing about driving - the police come along and want you to go quicker." "How's that, Mr Gendarme?" "So far Jeremy's had it pretty much his own way, while we've carried heavy bags, walked, caught buses and small trains." "Now things change." "We're on the big train." "We'll hit nearly 200mph on the way from here to Dover, it's 60mph in the tunnel" " and best part of 200mph across France." " (MOBILE RINGING)" " Is that him?" " It is." "Excellent." " Bonjour, Monsieur Clarkson." " I want to know where you are." "We are on the Eurostar train in enormous comfort, looking forward to the first-class lunch." " Would you like a drink?" " I think champagne." "I'll have champagne, too." "As they headed for the Channel Tunnel, I was already in champagne country." "But it wasn't me who needed a drink." "This is not good." "The fuel warning light's on." "This is gonna be a Formula One-style pit stop." " Here we go." " That's it." "Where's the fuel filler cap button?" " Sir?" " I'll have the white Bordeaux." "Why aren't they in the same place?" "Have you ever seen a more stupid place to put it?" "I suppose Jeremy could have a pasty or a pork pie." " Le burger." " Le sausage roll." " Come on!" " Finally, French soil." " (HUMS "LA MARSEILLAISE")" " Vive la France!" "Jeremy, we're coming to get you." "That was a fraught fill-up." "What a place to put it when you're in a race." "We brought a sophisticated tracking device that will enable us to see where Jeremy is at any time in his Aston and plot his speed and course." " He's there and he's doing 84mph." " That's a bit weedy, actually." "We're going to be doing 200mph all the way." "Frankly, he doesn't stand a chance." "(RICHARD) Our cockiness is short-lived." "As the train approaches Paris, Jeremy is already 172 miles south of us and we have to get across the city to change trains." " If we get this train, we're all right." " Stop wittering." "If we miss it..." "James and I have just 50 minutes to catch the connection to Nice." "It's one minute to four, French time." "They are now arriving in Paris." "James, just think of Jeremy arriving before us." " The quantity of smugness." " My soul is prepared." "It's just eating the petrol in one big lump." "All 20 gallons. (GULPS)" "That was delicious." "I need some more of that." "We can't take a taxi so we have to use an incomprehensible underground system from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon." "Lyon down there." "I've done the calculations on my phone." "It's doing 19 miles to the gallon." "Bearing in mind we're only cruising, it drinks like an Aston should." "And James refuses to run on television." " James and Richard are on the underground." " Two stops, 15 minutes to do it in." "I admit, it is a bit tight." " Hammond, will you hurry up?" " Shut up." " We're catching a train." " I wanted to make life difficult." " How long have you got?" " Minutes." "If we don't catch this train..." " If you don't catch it, you lose the race." " The longer I talk to you, the less likely it is." " Now I've lost James." " (JEREMY LAUGHS)" " You've caught it, then?" " We'll be accelerating up to 200mph." "Will you get 200mph out of your head?" " The train does not go 200mph." " 186, then." " Not as fast as a DB9." " It's a lot faster than you'll be going." "Enjoy your trip." "I'll have another bottle of diet Coke now." "We'll maybe order the wine." "Talk to you later." "Bye-bye." "We're not the first people to do this, you know." "There's this racing driver here called Wolf Barnato." "Somebody challenged him to get from Cannes to England in the time it took the Blue Train, the tourist train from the south of France, to get from Cannes to Calais." "He got to the Conservative Club in St James's, London, four minutes before the train reached Calais." " What did he go in?" " A Bentley Speed Six." "Was he a seven-foot curly-haired yob?" "No, one difference is that he was a rather dashing chap." "I'm about halfway into the journey." "No backache, I'm not uncomfortable, I'm not tired, my ears aren't bleeding." "So this car is as comfortable as an Aston should be." "One thing I cannot stand about this car's big brother, the Vanquish, is its flappy paddle gearbox." "It doesn't work and it breaks all the time." "That's because the paddles are attached to a manual gearbox, whereas in this they're attached to a six-speed automatic." "You don't get a gear lever." "Nothing at all." "All the gears are selected by buttons." "Push D and it's a normal automatic." "Just like any other auto you've ever driven." "However, when you pull one of the paddles, like so, it changes down." "Pull it again, blips the engine, drops it into third and then you're off!" "Like a scalded cock!" " There's his location." " How has he done that?" " By going very, very quickly." " He must have absolutely caned it from Lyon." " That thing must be on fire." " It must be glowing red." "This gearbox works." "Can you hear it double-declutching?" " (ENGINE ROARS)" " Oh!" "In an auto!" "It's not only the gearbox that impresses." "Because it's so light and modern," "I thought it would flow from bend to bend like a Ferrari or a Porsche, like it doesn't really need your help." "But actually they've made the steering quite heavy." "It feels like there's a big lump there." "A great big solid British suet pudding of an engine." "And that means when you kiss an apex just right, and you will, 'cause the handling is brilliant, you feel like you did it, you're responsible, it was all your own work, not the car's." "It flatters you." "(JEREMY) But it doesn't matter how good the car is." "It's choked by the French speed limits." "The Aston was reined in so badly, in fact, that with 200 miles to go, the train tore past." " We are ahead!" " We are ahead!" "(JEREMY) Now the fight really hots up." "I love today." "Today's a big tick in my life box." "A big "Yes, that was a good day"." "Even better, though, if I could win." "So let's get on with it." "(JEREMY) I have just one slim chance." "They've got to go further than me." "They're on a train which will go where it wants to go, not where they want to go." "Me, on the other hand, I am proceeding directly, no more fuel stops, to Monte Carlo." "So don't bet on the train just yet." "Now that I'm in the south on the twisty motorway going up to Monte Carlo, the car's changed from a comfortable long-distance cruiser into being this kind of savage sports car." "It feels like a brute, which is exactly what an Aston should feel like." "(RICHARD) With 100 miles to go, the train slows down along the coast and the gap is starting to shrink." "At Nice, even though we're just 15 miles from Monte Carlo, we need to make another train change." " Stop pacing now." " I can't." "I don't just like this car." "I love it." " Jeremy's going, "Grrrr!"" " I know." "It feels like motoring perfection." "If you don't mind just getting out of the way, Frenchie, I've got a train to catch." " What do you think?" " Keep going up." "This is it." "This is it." " Come on, James." "To lose it now..." " Sodding bag!" "Come on." "Last bit." "It is down here." "Come on!" "Why didn't we bring a map?" "James, come on!" "Oh, that's bad." "Oh." "I haven't the heart to tell him." " It's all over, May." " Oh, cock." " Evening." " Have you noticed something here?" " You two look stressed." "I'm relaxed." " There is a degree of perspiration." "The important thing we've proved is that no matter how good public transport is, how much it runs like clockwork, it'll never be a match for a car." "(JEREMY) And what a car we used to prove the point." "The fly-spattered DB9, which isn't just better than a train..." "It's more lovable and more rounded than a Bentley Continental GT." "It's better than a Ferrari 575." "It's better than a Vanquish." "It's prettier, with a better gearbox." "And at £103,000 it's considerably less expensive than all its rivals." "You know the best thing about it?" "It's a proper, pukka, hundred per cent, real, fabulous, glorious, exquisite, magnificent Aston Martin." "If you want to get to Monte Carlo slightly faster than on a train, buy an Aston Martin." "That's the sort of advice we've become famous for." "Time to find out about the most important skill of all." "Driving." "It's sort of what we do, this being a car show and everything." "Today is a quiet day at the "Top Gear" test track." "So the Stig is keeping its hand in by hammering out a few laps in a Noble M400." "Here it comes." "Ooh, 126 on a damp track." "That is fantastic." "That is race car driving." "Accurate, precise, fast." "It's what the Stig's for." "It's not what we're for." "What "Top Gear" presenters do is TV driving." "It's never gonna get you a great lap time, but it sure is fantastic to look at." "What we're doing is make life as hard as possible and see how it behaves in extreme circumstances." "In this case, pretty well." "It's easier with something like this." "It's the Vauxhall Monaro VXR." "Jeremy tested one of these last year and he absolutely loved it." "This is the new, even more mental one." "If you take those three qualities, bravery, thinking big and TV driving, and put them all together, the results can be spectacular." "As Jeremy proved with a Lotus Exige and a little help from the army." "(JEREMY) This is it." "The Exige." "It weighs less than a ton but you get 190 brake horsepower." "That's like putting a Saturn 5 rocket in a food blender." "It does 0 to 60 in 4.9 seconds." "Flat out, you'll be going 147." "And it's quite a sophisticated engine." "You get two camshafts, one for economy and one for power." "And there's a Lotus computer which manages the transition between the two." "You get to 6,200rpm when a normal engine would be running out of steam." "Here we go." "There's actually a jerk as it goes onto the power cam and you get even more!" "Oh!" "The best thing is when you drop down a gear to go round a corner on a track like this, it always stays above that magical 6,200rpm so you've always got the power." "Oh-ho!" "Ha-ha!" "But strangely, speed is not the key to this car." "And despite the rather steep £30,000 price tag, nor is sophistication." "Certainly you don't look very sophisticated when you're getting out of it." "And then there's the interior you've left behind." "Yes, you've got a stereo that plays MP3s, and air conditioning and electric windows." "But all these things are optional extras and so are the carpets and even the sun visors." "To get an idea of just how spartan this thing is, you need to look through the rear window." "Back there you've got chicken wire, Bacofoil and Tupperware." "Like peering into your granny's kitchen cabinet." "So if it's not built for speed or comfort, what's this car for, then?" "Well, um... this." "It corners like a housefly." "It's not just better than an Elite, but just about anything." "And here's why." "The front splitter and rear spoiler work to create real downforce like you get with a Formula One car." "Its tyres are as slick as the law allows and you get racing suspension." "Add that lot together and the effect is astonishing." "Everything just goes mental!" "To come up with something to match it, you have to think vertically." "This might do the trick." "It's an Apache helicopter gunship." "It's not the fastest helicopter in the world, it'll only do 163mph, and nor is it the most manoeuvrable." "But it is the ugliest and it does pack the deadliest punch." "It carries 12 Hellfire missiles, 72 rockets, and has a cannon which points wherever the pilot is looking and fires ten high-explosive rounds a second." "The thing that interests me most about the Apache, though, is its radar." "You can pop up from behind a tree or a hill 8km away." "It'll have a look at the battlefield, it'll recognise 256 targets, prioritise the 16 most dangerous at that given moment and destroy all of them." "And it'll do all that in 28 seconds." "Great, but in a single lap of our track, can it get missile lock on our Lotus?" "The best helicopter gunship in the world, flown by the best pilots, the British Army against the best-handling car in the world, driven by an idiot." "They'd win easily if they went a long way away, but we've instructed the pilots to stay within the confines of the track." "Let's go." "Target is identified." "That is not something you see every day, a gunship in your rear-view mirror." "I'm gonna turn round and go the other way." "Hope we're ready for that." "I'm not exactly a tank, matey boy." "Because this is black and plastic, it's hard to get radar lock." "It's like an F117 Nighthawk." "It's not that I'm an overgrown schoolboy or anything, but this is really good fun." "I can out-brake and I can out-turn the helicopter." "One and a half seconds after I make the move, you look in the mirror and there he is." "At one point, I hid beneath its soft American underbelly." "But it just blew me out again." "He's moving in the downdraught!" "That helicopter is the ugliest machine I have ever seen." "It's so ugly it's almost beautiful." "Not when it's in your rear-view mirror." "It's right behind me!" "Epic stuff." "The Stig has seen the Monaro and is pointing and grunting at it." "So we've had to swap - not a bad swap, though - for this." "The Noble M400." "We like this car." "Technically, it is a road car... until, that is, it gets the faintest whiff of a racetrack." "Then it's a race car." "Who would have thought that back there was a Ford V6?" "It's shoving out a mind-bending 425 brake horsepower, which means 0 to 60 is done and dusted in three and a half seconds." "Of course, Stig's not the only racing driver around here." "There was one occasion a while ago when I had to do a birthday tribute to the Renault Espace... and I had a good idea to sort of liven things up." "(RICHARD) You can't say a car has really arrived until it gets its own classic racing series." "There's the historic Ferrari-Maserati championship and Aston Martin and Jaguar have one." "They all do them." "And so we come to the inaugural Historic People Carrier Racing Championship, um... race." "We think this sport has great promise." "It'll be cheap, exciting and it's open to minicabbers and dads." "Just look at the line-up." "It should also be a good laugh, especially when you see what's taking part." "As well as two Espaces, we've got the Toyota Space Cruiser, a car once described by consumer experts as "highly unstable"." "The Mitsubishi Space Wagon, the lowest car here." "That's got to be good for handling." "Then we come to this, the Toyota Previa." "Now, this one has an ace up its sleeve because it's mid-engine just like a Ferrari." "And finally the Nissan Serena, for many years Britain's slowest-accelerating car, with a 0-to-60 time of 28 agonising seconds." "All of them picked up for a few hundred quid apiece." "We really want to put this race series on the map." "To show we're not messing about, we've got some serious driving talent." "Tim Harvey, former British touring car champion." "Matt Neal, former independent British touring car champion." "Anthony Reed, reigning independent touring car champion and Race of Champions... champion." "Rob Huff, Seat Cupra Championship champion." "And Tom Chilton, who one day probably will be a champion." "Champion." "This is very, very exciting." "I'm with some of the country's top racing drivers." "I was in silver Espace, No. 1, but Rob Huff in the diesel Serena went for my jugular right from the off." "Really a pretty brutal start." "The racing rules were simple." "15 laps and no body contact." "But touring car drivers always forget that last bit." "Obviously you do get a bit of lean in people carrier racing." "As they go into the top turn, bit of four-wheel drift." "I'm getting understeer." "I'm being leant on heavily by the Toyota." "The Serena just a great big lump, like somebody's left a barn on the track." "How am I gonna get round that thing?" "Like that." "Soon both Espaces were fighting for the lead." "I'm in third gear and it's cost me." "Ooh, that's cost me two places, that mistake." "And Matt Neal's Space Cruiser was more like a spacehopper." "I'm using the Toyota to steer the Espace, countering my terrible understeer problems." "This is not obviously a usual way to drive a family vehicle." "Oh, this is big!" "Yes!" "(LAUGHS)" "That's two of them gone." "By now, it has to be said, there was a smattering of body contact." "Yes!" "But you always get teething problems in the early days of any historic race series." "Come on!" "Right, I'll have him for that." "Here we go." "My Espace made mincemeat of Tim Harvey's Space Wagon as we headed for the finish." "This is the best form of racing ever devised." "Now it's Espace on Espace." "We've stayed at the front." "Second." "First and second for the Espaces." "What a great victory." "What a great day." "You see, they were a multi-purpose vehicle and we tried almost everything with them - carrying families, dogs - but there was one purpose we left unexplored until now." "We've started something." "Historic people carrier racing could be the way forward." "Not with this one, though." "That's a bit spent." "After that film we appealed for people carrier owners to help us get the race series going." "We were absolutely inundated with literally no responses whatsoever." "Hang on." "Here he comes." "One minute 36." "Good, Stig." "And in the wet, too." "Now, those humble MPVs teach us another lesson about being a "Top Gear" presenter." "You don't always need the most expensive supercars to get the best stories." "We proved that when we tried to buy three Porsches for scrapyard money and then keep them going." "This is Exchange Square, in the heart of Europe's biggest financial district." "It's the spiritual home of hedges, stocks, futures... and, of course, Porsches." "Though probably not ones like this." "It's what I bought, though." "A 23-year-old 924, the Porsche that was designed for Everyman." "I didn't spend 1,500 quid on my 924." "I didn't even spend a grand." "750 quid... on the Porsche." "750 quid." "And the lights pop up." "I was feeling pleased until I saw what James had bought." "You've got a 944!" "In white." " This looks all right from a big distance." " What do you mean?" "It looks all right close up." "It's got a 2.5- litre four-cylinder engine and it's a proper Porsche-developed engine, whereas your car has the engine from a VW van." " What's His Nibs gonna have got?" " I think he'll have got one of those." "(JEREMY) In fact, His Nibs had been rather more ambitious." " (HORN)" " Oh, my..." "He's got a 928!" "Absolutely." "A 928." "No Everyman Porsche for me." "This one has a 4.7- litre V8." "Gentlemen, I give you a timeless classic." "A proper Porsche." "Jeremy, you got a 928 on our budget?" "Beneath this rather faded, ruined exterior beats a heart of pure arthritis." "Come and have a look at this." "It's even full of junk!" "These water bottles are a little bit necessary..." " Ah, got you." "...in order to make it move." "Maybe you've overreached yourself?" "I've seen one for more advertised as spares." "Let's see what you've got." "This looks quite good." " From a distance." " It's been in a canal at some point." "Hey, now, survey the magnificence." "This one has the van engine." "It has a good, simple van engine." " We got three Porsches." " We did get three Porsches." "Pretty ropey." "Scrap." "Mine looks pretty good." "Let's have a look at what the challenge is." "Thank you." "Thank you." ""Veteran cars can make it from London to Brighton, but can you?"" " No." " No." "But why do it?" ""Five points are lost for each time you open the bonnet."" "That's thousands for you." "Throw the bonnet away." ""Meet on the sea front to receive your next challenge," ""assuming you make it..." "Jeremy."" "Brighton from here in our Porsches." " How far's that?" " It's 70 miles." " I'm very confident." " See you at the seaside, chaps." "No, you won't, but all right, let's go." "A wide range of warning lights already." "We are on the way to Brighton... in our Porsches." "This was a hugely advanced car when it came out." "Polyurethane bumpers, first car ever with passive rear-wheel steering." "I've always, always..." "Oh, my God, I've got steam." " Is Jeremy breaking down?" " There's a lot of steam coming out of the bonnet." "Did he say "I've got speed" or "I've got steam"?" "(JEREMY) No, it was definitely steam and it was erupting after just two miles." "Garage." "Oh, there is a god." " We won't need all this." " No, no." " Is it really coming out?" " Faster than it's going in." "Needs a bit more." "It's leaking faster and faster." "Is there this much water in England?" "And still it goes in." "Every single fluid is gushing out of it." "Can you see if they've got any eggs, Richard?" "Jeremy and Richard have gone to buy an egg so we can use the old trick of mixing the egg white into the coolant system and that will find... and block." "This... this is Hammond's contribution." "He's bought a chocolate egg." " Eggs work." "That's the only one I found." " Put it in." "15 litres and it's full." " Have you seen this?" " (BLEEP)" "There's another puddle." "It's fine." "It's just a little..." "It's a dribble." "With all the water from the Thames Valley in my cooling system, and a chocolate egg, we were back on the road." "We're off." "That was a complete farce." "Where did this car pass its MOT?" "Iran, perhaps?" "Our progress was good for, ooh, another two miles and then it was James's turn to grind the convoy to a halt with a puncture." "Guys, who thought this was a sensible idea, to buy three Porsches?" " We've done four miles." " You could have had a puncture in any car." "But you didn't." " He can't open the boot." " Is that boot broken?" "(JEREMY) Luckily we were able to hot-wire the remains of the remote boot release." " Anything?" " Yes." "There you go, James." "Unfortunately the spare was flat and bald so we had to take the original punctured tyre up the road to get it fixed." "Mine's working perfectly now." "It is." " I'll race you to Brighton." " All right." "How many points off is this?" " And where's my eclair?" " He only gave me two." "Unfortunately, while I was gorging myself on chocolate, down the road my car was emptying itself of yet more fluids." " Oh, my God." " Is that petrol?" " It's leaking petrol out of the back." " Should we stand away from it?" "And steam coming out of the front." "It's still leaking." "That might explain the poor fuel consumption I got coming to London." "And the fire following you." "Happily, the brave men of Brixton helped us fix it and once again we were under way, although a little behind schedule." "In fact, we'd set off six hours earlier and we were still in South London and things were still going wrong." "What's this?" "While I was laughing at James, though, my car went wrong again." "You won't believe it." "My coolant warning light's come on." "It's going to break." "We'd asked ourselves whether you could buy a decent Porsche for less than £1,500." "The answer was becoming obvious." "(JEREMY AND RICHARD LAUGH)" "It was hanging off in the wind." "Hey, that's five points." " How many points is that?" " It's overheating again." " That's five points, then." " It's boiled 15 litres of water." " My kettle couldn't boil them in three miles." " This is bigger." "This time we're gonna go more than three miles without stopping." "(RICHARD) So this is it, the long run." "Brighton, here we come." "We're going by Porsche power!" "At last, the open road to Brighton." "(JEREMY) Hey, I'll tell you something interesting." "As I speak to you now, all is well." "Yes, we were on our way." "Nothing could stop us now." "(RATTLING)" "Once again I see through the traffic ahead what appears to be a small - no, make that a large - fire." "Oh, dear." "Jeremy's car does appear to be genuinely broken." "It's..." "I can't see anything." "I've had steam from the front, water from underneath and now smoke from the back." "Will it get to Brighton?" "Oh, steam from the front." "Finally, seven hours and six breakdowns after we started, we hit the motorway where, apart from its structural weaknesses," "James's 944 was going well." "And surprisingly, mine wasn't holding up too badly either." "For the first time today I have no warning light on the dashboard." "All is well." "Apart from the rear windscreen wiper and the electric window and electric door mirrors and the stereo and the clock and the air conditioning and the speedometer and mileometer and the piston ring that's eating the engine and the big smoke coming out of the back." "Everything's fine." "Hammond's lowly 924, though, was the star of the show." "See, I'm cruising on the motorway - I'm overtaking on the motorway - in my Porsche for 750 quid." "It's fantastic." "(RICHARD) An hour later we were just outside Brighton." "Guess what's missing from this picture." "We should go back and look for him." "That would be the caring thing to do." "But he wouldn't do it for me." "We're at Brighton." "I knew we'd make it, obviously." "I knew I'd get here." "Yes!" "Apart from losing Jeremy, the only problem we had was James's enormous new spoiler." "Three, two, one... 1,500-quid Porsches." "I'm not sure." "Our rendezvous point was the sea front, where there was still no sign of Clarkson." "I think he'll still turn up." "Let's look at the next challenge, work out whether or not he's likely to be in it." " Can we have a challenge, man?" " Thank you." "OK." "Challenge Two. "It's max Porsche time." ""You must use the change from your £1,500 budget" ""to modify your car and generally improve it." ""Reconvene at the 'Top Gear' base," ""where an independent adjudicator from the Porsche Owners Club" ""will judge your work."" " Have you got any change?" " A bit of change, yeah." " I'm fairly confident Jeremy hasn't." " I doubt it." "(RICHARD) Speaking of the devil..." "That's the fastest your car's been all day." "It's still using more fuel than mine sitting on there." "What have you got to say about your car?" " The bonnet hasn't been up." " Has it welded itself shut?" "After the other times, I didn't lift it." "There was such a big bang." "You don't know about the next challenge, do you?" " What is the next challenge?" " Spend the change from your 1,500 budget." "You've got to improve your car as much as possible and have it judged by an adjudicator from the Porsche Owners Club." "You can spend all the money left from the 1,500 quid on your car." " How much have you got?" " I spent 750 quid on my car." "So I've got 750 quid to spend on improving it." "I spent 900 quid on my car, which gives me 600 quid to spend improving it." " How much did you spend?" " (MUMBLES) 1,500." " Sorry?" " 1,500." "1,500?" "So you've got nothing to spend on improving it." " It's not improving it..." " It's getting it going." "A round of applause." "Now to business." "The scores." "After that Brighton run..." "I didn't open my bonnet once so I don't lose any points." "That's a zero in there." "James, you had one breakdown." "That counts, so that's minus 5 for you." " Jeremy, you had seven..." " I didn't." "I had six breakdowns." "Six." "The AA man came and I said, "Don't open the bonnet, I'll lose five points."" "He was a bit confused, but I said," ""The 928's got no cylinder liners" ""so the broken piston rings chew the engine to pieces."" "I said, "You can't fix that at the side of the A23..."" " How was that not a breakdown?" " Come on." " Does that count?" " (AUDIENCE SHOUTING)" "It's a breakdown." "It's a breakdown." "As I was saying, minus 35." "Great start." "Then we addressed the issue of fuel economy." "The target here was 25 miles to the gallon on the trip to Brighton." "I did exactly 25 miles to the gallon." "That means I scored no points but I don't lose any points." "You, Hammond, did 27 miles to the gallon, which gives you plus 10 points. 2mpg over." "Jeremy, you did seven miles to the gallon." "No." "Again, no." "I put the petrol into the tank, it went straight out." "It didn't go near the engine." "It didn't go back in the pump." "You're not gonna..." "It's not seven." "Thank you." "So as we were saying, minus 90." " Well done." " Minus..." "Oh, for God's sake!" "Anyway, when we came back I had the chance to make up some ground because we were given another challenge which I have here." "Let me read it out for you." ""The reason why middle-aged men such as you buy Porsches" ""is because they're having a mid-life crisis." ""Each of you must place an ad in a lonely hearts column" ""and refer to the car you've bought." ""Five points for each reply."" "James, why don't you read out your advertisement that you placed, genuinely, in wherever it was?" ""41-year-old man with sensitive hair, dri..." ""41-year-old man with sensitive hair, drives Porsche 944 Lux," ""seeks brewery heiress or similar" ""with liberal attitude to motorcycle parts in the bath."" " How many replies did you get?" " Three." "Three replies, so that's 15 points." " OK." "Hammond?" " Well, my advert went like this." ""Porsche 924 owner..." Got it in first." ""...good-looking, mild-mannered, snappy dresser, 5'11"..."" " 5'11"?" " Mild-mannered?" "If I put "angry short bloke" I won't get any replies." "Big it up, talk it up." " How many replies did you get?" " None." "(LAUGHTER)" " So that's a big fat nought for you." " What about you?" "My ad: "Porsche 928 driver - that's the V8 one..."" " Did you actually put that?" " Yes. "That's the V8 one."" ""Tall, slim hips, likes books with speedboats on the cover," ""would like friendship, maybe more."" "Do you know where he put that advert?" "He put that in the Men Seeking Men column." "A moment of genius, that, 'cause I recognised that men would like the V8 thing." " But did they?" " Yeah, got two replies." "So, plus 10." "For me." "We must get on with our Porsche story." "If you weren't watching earlier, each of us was given £1,500 and told to go off and buy a Porsche." "We were told to drive them to Brighton." "Then we were told to spend the change from our 1,500 quid on doing the cars up." "That was a problem for Jeremy because he'd blown all 1,500 quid on his rubbish 928 and it arrived in Brighton on a low-loader, which meant he had to get it going first and then do it up on a budget of nothing." "Tall order." "(RICHARD) There are three shapes there, so presumably Jeremy's car made it." "Let's see what changes James has made." "It looks the same." " Is this putty?" " No." "Bathroom sealant." " (LAUGHING)" " What did the car have in it?" "I'd run out of money." "(JAMES) OK, the interior was a Homebase bodge job but my secret weapon was the gleaming condition of my engine bay." " How did you clean it?" " With a man." "He's spent his money on a man." "You think the judge will only be interested in concours?" " I'd forgotten it was a Porsche judge." " I've been thinking ahead here." "Right." "(JAMES) Hammond had given his 924 sporting credentials it didn't deserve." " Look at that!" " It's the flames." "I did those with help from an art college friend." "They're the Gulf racing colours." " I've just seen the gear knob." " That's quite a nice addition." "I spent my money in the pursuit of performance." "It's been lowered, it's on new springs, new suspension, lower-profile tyres." " It's a track car." " James." " Oh, no!" " Have you put a turbo on it?" " No." " Is this the turbo?" "No, none of those are the turbo." " Well done." " Good job you fitted the air intake." "(JAMES) Right, let's see what Jeremy has achieved with no money." "Blackboard paint!" "Jeremy, you're supposed to put the underseal on the bottom of the car." " You know those old Capris?" " That's what I wanted." "I thought I'd copy it, only I went over a bit, so I just kept going." "Whereas this looks much better." " How many cylinders?" " Six and three quarters." "I'm less worried, having seen yours." "(JEREMY) Laughing at each other was not a scientific measure." "Our efforts had to be judged by the chairman of judges of the famously fastidious Porsche Owners Club of Great Britain." " Good morning, gentlemen." " May." "M-A-Y." "And the registration, please, Mr May." " I don't know." " Could you open the tailgate for me?" "I'll have a go." "Don't break it." "The original door pull was missing and it's a difficult part to get hold of, so I substituted the kitchen unit drop handle." "And that is the rear windscreen wiper." " It all looks like Tippex to me." " That's because it is Tippex." " Oh, really?" " (JEREMY) Now for the big moment." " Come and see this, gentlemen." " James's sparkling engine bay." " All original fittings?" " Yes, simply cleaned and polished." " No fancy tricks, just elbow grease." " That's what we like to see." "I'm worried about the originality of the colour." "It's not an original colour." "Have you ever seen a Blackbird, the SR71?" " There you go." " So not original, better." " Could you flip the bonnet up for us?" "Thanks." " There you go." " That's my..." " That's rather vulgar." " I think bling." " I can't give you any points for the seats." "But you can't knock any off." "There's nothing wrong with them if they're not there." " Original stickers." " Are they?" " One point for those, then." " Right." "Probably the most valuable bit of the car." "That's not real." " What does it do?" " Nothing." "(JEREMY) While the judges retired to do their scoring, we dived into the next challenge." ""All your cars have a sporting pedigree." ""Each Porsche must set a lap time with the Stig." ""You will gain a point for every second under 1 minute 35," ""lose a point for every second over."" "(ENGINE SPLUTTERS THEN STARTS)" "There, you've started." "See the black smoke?" " Look at all the smoke!" " It's just mist on a lovely morning." " Look at that!" " It's gassing everything down there." "Stop it." "It's going round the corner, James." " Look at it." " Let's just ease back a bit." "More than that!" " What was the time?" " 1.45." "What a machine." "What a machine." " What a stink." " Let's see yours." "(TYRES SCREECH)" "Those second-hand tyres are really holding well." "Already several seconds ahead." "(JEREMY) I wonder if James's grout will hold." "A bit of smoke there, James." " It was light." "He only had two cylinders left." " So it did it?" " 1.43." " That's faster than Jeremy's." " Only two seconds." " This is everything for me." "You need this to work." " It looks smaller because of the tyres." " Better acceleration." "Exactly." "Better acceleration." " It was making a grinding noise." " There is a wheel bearing issue." "I could replace it or do the suspension." "So the wheel may come off." " And kill the Stig." " So?" "It looks good." "All of that effort, all of those low-profile tyres..." "slower than his." "If I'd left it standard it would have been a lot slower." "(JEREMY) James's gloating was short-lived, though." "Look at what had happened to his shiny engine bay." " (LAUGHTER)" " It's not funny." "All he had was a clean engine." " Have you finished?" " Get your hand off my bonnet." ""The next challenge is Elevenses." ""Each driver must use his Porsche to see who can create the longest number 11 skid mark."" " This should be a well-oiled attempt." " Yeah." " No shortage of oil under the bonnet." " Let's see him." "Not bad." "I've got a tape measure." "Grab that." " Go down." " I've never seen him be that lairy." "That is 31 feet." "Don't tell him that." "You did about four inches." " That's quite good." " That was me in a Bentley." "Go!" " Amazing." " Give me the end." "It is 35 feet." "He's beaten you." " He can do something." " However, my V6 and ¾ is coming." "To be brutally honest, my car, with its V6 and ¾ engine and automatic gearbox, can't do smoking starts, so I'll have to be ingenious." "The life remaining in that car can now be calculated in yards." "Right, three, two, one, let it rip." "He's just driven away." " Let's give him an inch." " It's an inch." " Guys." " Yeah." " That wasn't my best start." " Look at the result." "I've had a great idea." "Stand back." "Imagine what he was like as a child." "If you were from the region of China just near Tibet, north-east, you'd look and go, "Someone write 11."" " This is all just rubbish." " That's not an 11, is it?" "39... 40... 41... 42 yards." "(RICHARD) The judges would have to decide on Jeremy's Asian number 11." "In the meantime, we had our final challenge to think about." ""We hope you enjoyed owning your Porsches." "Each of you must now sell your cars." ""Points will be awarded for the money you make over the £1,500 you spent."" "That's not in good shape." "Yours isn't in good shape." " Mine's got my name on it." " But we're better off." "I've got my name on it." "I'll have to find a short bloke called Richard Hammond who wants a car." " Who's gonna buy it from me?" " Nobody." "If you want sound car-buying advice from experts with a combined 40 years of motoring journalism, look elsewhere." "But no one can say we don't test a car properly." "Another quality a "Top Gear" presenter needs." "By "properly" I don't just mean how it drives." "What happens if your car is struck by lightning?" "Someone had to find out." "This is the Siemens high-voltage lab in Berlin." "Normally it builds and tests high-voltage equipment for power stations and the national grid." "These transformers can generate almost two million volts of pure electricity." "But today they're going to use that electricity for something else." "To make lightning." "They're going to zap me and this car with 800,000 volts." "Car firms don't test for lightning strikes, so I've no idea how it'll go." "Right, my life is now in the hands of "A" level physics." "The lightning will come out of these transformers along the wires and then shoot down to the car." "(BUZZER)" "What was that?" "(GERMAN MAN) OK, I will start to raise the voltage." "He's starting to raise the "woltage"." "200,000 volts." "We had a briefing with the scientist and he said keep my hands together towards the centre of the car and away from any metal objects." "But it's a car." "It's made of metal." "400,000 volts." "I can hear a noise, a buzzing." "(BUZZING)" "600,000 volts." "It's really buzzing now." "I don't know what'll happen when it comes." "I'm about to be hit by lightning." "It's building and it builds the tension with it." "It's quite a strange..." " You can almost feel the tension..." " (CRACKLING)" "Oh, that's scary." "I'm being hit by lightning." "My hands are buzzing." "Wa-hey!" "It's doing stuff to my car." "I've got "Error" up on the dashboard." "Handbrake light flashing." "Whoa-ho!" "So it works." "Assuming I'm not now talking to you with wings and a harp, I'm alive." "The question is, is the car?" "The electric windows work." "Lights, they work." "Stereo." "That's nice." "Lovely." "Indicators." "Everything." " (ENGINE STARTS)" " And it starts." "It still works." "Amazing." "The testing doesn't stop there." "What about driving in crosswinds behind a 747?" "These are General Electric CF6s." "They're 23 feet long and they weigh six tons." "One engine produces 58,000lb of thrust." "And this has got four of them." "But 58,000lb of thrust, that's kind of meaningless." "How do you get your head round that sort of power?" "Our plan is to drive a car behind the 747 when the engines are at full power." "The question is, how far can the engines blow the car off course?" "It's not as easy as you might think." "It's too dangerous to drive them under here behind the engines." "They have to be well clear." "In fact, they have to be way back here, past the tail." "And then a bit more." "That's a good 50 yards behind the engines." "The first car we'll be subjecting to a good stiff breeze is this Ford Mondeo." "Modern, aerodynamic, good at coping with motorway crosswinds." "Right, here we go." "The pilot is easing up the throttle, building up the power." "It's crucial that we release the car at exactly the right time." "If these engines run at full thrust for more than 20 seconds, they'll start to rip up the runway." "And then we'll be in trouble." "(PILOT SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)" "OK, the engines are at full power and here comes the Mondeo." "Can they blow this one-and-a-half-ton car off course from 50 yards away?" "Three, two..." "Oh, blimeyl There it goesl" "The Mondeo must have been blasted a good 50 feet, but we haven't finished yet." "That was a modern, aerodynamic car." "Let's see what happens when we let loose the "Top Gear" crosswind on something a little more, well, slab-sided." "A Citroën 2CV." "Big engine, lightweight hippy car." "This should be fun." "OK, here we go again." "The engines are up to 58,000lb of thrust." "The car is released." "And three, two..." "Crikeyl" "Yes, the 2CVreally doesn't like crosswinds." "There you go." "Next time you think you might encounter crosswinds or have to drive behind a 747, you're better off with a Mondeo than a 2CV." "It's a service we provide, this stuff." "Those everyday occurrences - lightning strikes, driving behind a jumbo jet - taken care of." "Now we come to the final and most important lesson to learn to be a "Top Gear" presenter." "It's quite a simple one." "Always remember it's the car and not you that's the star." "Nothing proves that better than this, the legendary Toyota pick-up, the car that refused to die." "(JEREMY) For £1,000, we got a 13-year-old Hilux diesel which had done 190,000 miles." "Judging by the state of it, only ten of them had been done on the road." "We love cars like this on "Top Gear"." "It's why we like the Citroën Berlingo and the Daihatsu Charade." "They're simple, honest-to-God engineering." "But this gives us a problem." "When we get a Porsche to test we find out how fast it goes." "When we get a Renault Mégane we find out how safe it is." "But this, as you know, is built for strength." "So we've got to find out how tough it is." "That's why we brought it to Bristol." "This city has an air of solidity about it." "The paving stones, for instance, are cemented and then nailed in place." "The buildings look planted." "It's a Victorian ode to the test of time." "So let's find out how the best-built city in Britain copes with our pick-up truck." "Now, this, I want to make it plain, is not Hollywood." "We're not using stuntmen, we're not gonna use computer graphics." "We haven't made any mechanical alterations to the car at all." "We picked it up from the farmyard and brought it here." "Ooh, dear, that was a bit uncomfortable." "It's damaged my spine quite badly, doing this." "And then it set about damaging Bristol." "This didn't really hurt it either." "Yeah, battery's good, radiator's good." "That'll buff out." " That's got it." " (ENGINE STARTS)" "Soon we left the city centre and went to the seaside." "I'd tried careless driving so I thought I'd try a spot of careless parking." "Look what's happened." "This is the Severn Estuary, home to the world's second-biggest tide." "40 feet, and it moves at 8mph." "That's why the RNLI have tethered my car in place." "I'm not gonna get that out for hours." "(ECHOING) Damn!" "The lifeboatmen and locals thought it was all a huge laugh." " That'll drown my car?" " Oh, yes." " When will I be able to get it out again?" " A few hours." "Windscreen's still in." "But then disaster." "The ropes tying it down had snapped." " It could be..." " It could be right out in the main channel." "I don't think you quite got this." "We've got to get it back." "Very kindly, they waded out to see if they could find it, but it had gone and it didn't turn up until the tide had gone out five hours later." "The silt had jammed the steering lock and the cylinders were flooded with sea water." "It was a wreck." "Though we'd brought a mechanic along, we had no spare parts." "Things looked bleak." "The mechanic has worked on it now for 40 minutes or so, I think and it's not looking good." "It seems that if you want to kill one of these things, the beach, the sea, salt water is the answer." "Sorry." " (ENGINE STARTS)" " Erm, wrong." "Astonishingly, the Toyota was not dead." "I do not believe it." "Right, it started." "Now, let's see if it moves." "(ALL CHEER)" "So it had survived the West Country." "But would it survive our test track?" "The problem is, what can we do here that we haven't already tried?" "Difficult one." "I mean, the only solid structure we have here is this, the "Top Gear"production office." "And that won't stop it." "The Americans have used daisy-cutters on these things, to no avail." "But I've got something much more powerful." "The Mistral GT." "What do you have to do to kill one?" "Ah." "Right." "It'll be a bit undignified, but here we go." "Oh, Lordy, I'm too old for this." "I honestly can't believe this." "The steering's fine, the gearbox is fine, the low-range box, the brakes." "The speedo's telling me we're doing 30." "To give you an idea of just how strong this car still is, look what we've got here." "It's used to fell skyscrapers, but look what happens when you thump it into the car." "Well, the day thou gavest, Lord, is ended." "But, sadly, the car isn't." "It survived trial by water, it survived trial by Bristol and trial by caravan, but now it must face the most difficult trial of them all." "Trial by fire." "(WHISTLES)" " That was phenomenal." " I know." "Amazing." "Be honest." "Did you really not change any bits?" "Only the windscreen." "The sea took the windscreen out and we had to put a new one in." "So we put a new piece of perspex in." "Other than that, we just had hammers, spanners and WD-40 to get the engine going." "Which makes it more of a shame that you killed it with fire." " That was churlish." " Well, that's the thing." "You probably won't believe this, ladies and gentlemen." "I want a huge round of applause." "It is still working!" "(CHEERING AND WHISTLING)" "Oh, my car!" "My car!" "Have you ever seen anything like it?" "After that, James made an even more spectacular attempt at killing it." "He put it on top of a tower block that was about to be demolished." "(MAN) Six, five, four, three, two, one..." "(JAMES) So, the moment of truth." "Will it be buried under thousands of tons of public housing?" "No." "There it is." "It may have escaped being buried alive, but that 240-foot drop has taken its toll." "It's smashed and bashed almost beyond recognition." "Oh, dear." "Oh, yeah." "I'd say that was pretty Ronnied." " Have you got a crowbar with you?" " Yeah." "(JAMES) We've got our mechanic." "As before, he's not allowed spare parts and can only use basic tools." "Too much." "It doesn't look good." " Is this it?" " This is it." "I'll give it a go." "(ENGINE TURNS OVER)" "Come on!" "(ENGINE STARTS)" "(CHEERING AND WHISTLING)" "Unbelievable." "But, but, but..." "OK, James..." "James..." " We've seen that it started." " Yeah, it did start." " But did it move?" " I can hardly believe this myself." "Ladies and gentlemen, here it is!" "(CHEERING AND WHISTLING)" "Is this car...?" "That's just..." "What a truly amazing vehicle." "I think it's made its point." "We'll never try and harm it again." "That's about it from down in the bunker." "I hope you've learnt something." "Before I lock up, let's pay a brief tribute to the one who doesn't get to spout off, sign autographs, open supermarkets and wear hair products in the way that we do." "This is where we keep him." "And this is what he does." "Bring him out." "Stiggy bird." "(JEREMY) It's more intelligent than the man behind the wheel." "1.22.3." "Here we go." "(RICHARD) This is what it's all about, a raw, simple car and a raw, simple driver." "The Stig." "(JEREMY) 1.21.9." " You've got to give it to the Stig." " (RICHARD) It's going up." "(JEREMY) It goes there." "One minute 20 seconds point nine." "(JAMES)... do that." "Down a wee bit for this lap." "One minute 27.1." "(JEREMY) This is the big one." "And 19I" "What will the Stig make of it?" "It's soaking wet." "One minute 28.5 seconds." "Let's hand it over to the dark side of the Stig." "1.19 dead." "(JEREMY) This is Stig's birthday and Christmas present all rolled into one." "And he's offi" "Come on." "Did he?" "Well, it was greasy out there and there were big puddles which did slow him down a bit." " Yes?" " The Stig did it." " 59 seconds." " Yes!" "Another essential quality for the "Top Gear" presenter is, of course, professionalism." "Absolute professionalism at all times." "You know the three hardest words for a man to say?" ""I won't **** ** **** *****"?" "No." "What I've got here are two Armani jackets, basically identical." "In this one, if you look, the label says "Armani"." "OK?" "Whereas in this one we've changed the label to... (BLEEP)" "Sorry." "I've just realised something." "It's late and I'm drunk." "Time for the news." "Terrible pity about Jeremy not liking the 350Z." " I wondered if he'd like the 350Z watch." " I've got cramp!" "(BLEEP)" "Oh, bloody hell!" "Aargh!" "So we're saying that this lovely old car is the embodiment of a nice cup of tea in front of a roaring log fire?" "Yes, it's like settling down in the warm library of a country house with a good book and a Labrador at your feet and nothing to do until dinner." "Right, time for the news." "It's been officially announced this week that Jeremy Clarkson is an arse." "(RICHARD) He has a point." "He does have a point." "Get on with the news properly." "So what we're saying is that this..." "Oh, no, no, this is bad." "I appreciate a lot of that is difficult to follow." "(STUMBLES OVER WORDS) You see?" "I haven't started yet." "Yes, it's a steaming hot bowl of soup after a..." "He just..." "He started that!" "It wasn't me!" "He went." "I didn't do it." "I appreciate a lot of that is quite difficult to follow." "The Porsche 911 range is one of the world's great unfathomables." "Let me try and explain it to you in basic English." "This is Sharon, OK?" "Now, Sharon is all woman." "She is the 911 turbo, OK?" "Now, standing next to her is Vicky." "Oh, I've forgotten." "They just put me off!" "Just... these great orbs!" "Bloody hell!"