"Hello" "And we begin with a letter, a real one for once" "It's from a Mr. John Fox, and it goes like this" "Dear Jeremy So-called Clarkson" "For once, do you think it might be possible to test some cars in your program that people can actually afford" "Exclamation mark, exclamation mark, exclamation mark" "Well, Mr. Fox, this is the 2-litre turbo diesel Volkswagen Jitter" "I don't like it very much" "That's covered all the bases." "So now, let's get on with the show" "Subtitled by Captain_Fast, China" "The base for our program this year is the south of France" "It's one of my favourite places in the world because of the cafes and the little villages" "The scenery is stunning too" "But best of all" "It's home to this place" "This is the Paul Ricard test track the most advanced testing facility in the world" "It has a 5.8 km track including the 1.8 km Mistral straight" "The circuit's regularly used by F1 teams for high speed testing" "And multicolored asphalt runoff zones replace conventional gravel traps" "It's as bang up to date as this morning's newspaper" "This is the Brutus" "It's a 1908 chassis fitted with a 12 cylinder 46 litre BMW engine from an aeroplane" "This car is the stuff of nightmares" "It is the tenth circle of hell the very embodiment of evil" "To demonstrate its awesome frightening power we are going to race it against a modern saloon car" "The BMW 1M" "This is a stunning little car 340 horsepower from its twin-turbo straight-six simple manual, and fast as hell" "But, how will it get on against the devil?" "That is a victory for good" "And here comes evil now" "Well-beaten" "This then, is the sound of hydrocarbons exploding" "It's the sound of metal on metal" "It's the sound of hot exhaust gases" "It's the sound of fire and rage, and fury" "And all the evidence suggests that most of all it's the sound of yesterday" "We are told that in the new world where power comes from the wind and the sun cars hum like happy monks" "The world's roads will be peaceful and calm, and serene" "Really?" "This car started out in life as a hybrid" "A car for the enthusiasts of armpit hair and brown rice" "But, as you've probably noticed, it's been tweaked a bit" "What this is, is a Mugen Honda CR-Z" "Still has all the usual eco paraphernalia displays telling me when the electrical motor is running, when the battery is being charged and so on" "But the best bit is that right in the middle of the rev counter" "See, when I put it in Eco mode, and I drive slowly and considerately" "I get a green reward" "Then when I put it in Normal" "It goes blue" "And then when I put it in Sport" "It goes red, as in red hot" "The electric motor is standard" "But the 1.5 litre engine has been toughened and supercharged" "So that now this car produces nearly 200 horsepower 70 more than normal" "It's been lightened as well, by 50 kilograms" "The bonnet is carbon fiber, the doors are carbon fiber" "They've garnished the finished product with racing seats and extra dials, and a tuneful exhaust to create an eco-racer" "The steering is brilliant, and the modified suspension and the limited-slip diff" "It means you can chuck it into a corner at any speed that takes your fancy" "It's a bit like a Ford Focus RS in some ways" "With the front diff, you can feel it tugging you in toward the apex" "The brakes are good as well" "Oh, yes, yes, yes" "What Mugen have done then, is they've taken the brown rice and smothered it in pepper sauce" "I like it" "I used to have an old Honda CR-X" "And this sort of reminds me of it" "It's got the same useless rear visibility same two seater layout and same sense of eagerness" "And providing you leave it in sport mode and really work the gearbox to keep the revs up it is properly quick!" "The immense torque of the electric motor helps get you off the line" "And then you have the supercharge grunt to keep the momentum going" "The result is 0-60 in 6.6 seconds, and a top speed of 142 mph" "Of course, you are probably sitting there now thinking "Yes, very good"" ""But what exactly is the point of a supercharged eco car"" "I mean, isn't that like trying to sell semi-skimmed health milk but with an infusion of double cream" "But here is the thing" "Despite the fact it churns out nearly 200 horsepower it's almost impossible to make it do less than 35 mpg" "And if you are careful, you will get that figure up to 50" "If this is the future, count me in" "But, to be honest, I can't really see why we need to leave the present" "Welcome everybody to the Lamborghini Gallardo Performante" "It's a slightly more powerful, lighten version of the convertible" "And I absolutely love it!" "Some supercars these days are as serious as an evening at the theater watching something dreary and Shakespearean" "This though, this is just pure panto" "You can just tell it was built purely for fun" "You know what I've got, a billion miles of blue sky over my head the bellow of that 570 horsepower V10 all the grip in the world, from the four-wheel drive system and styling which is just magnificent" "Ah, this is a fantastic car!" "But is it as fantastic, I wonder as the fax machine that is now up my chuff the McLaren MP4-12C" "Ok, you want a race, sunshine?" "Live with this" "Ah-oh, oh, he's got me already, quite badly" "He's gone!" "This car may sound like it's from page 57 of Hewlett-Packard catalogue" "But it is one of the fastest road cars in the world right now" "It went round the Top Gear test track in 1:16.2" "And nothing this side of a V8 powered Ariel Atom can do it that quickly, not even a Bugatti Veyron Super Sport" "Of course, though, the MP4-12C was developed at the Top Gear test track" "So you'd expect it to be fast there, however" "You just saw what it did to that Lambo, which means it's fast here as well" "You probably image that when you hear it and look at it, and see it go" "It must be getting through half the Brazilian rain forest and six polar bears every 40 seconds" "Not so, because even though this car develops 592 hp it does 30 mpg" "It may be orange, but actually, it's green" "And here is the reason" "In the olden days, McLaren would have put a V12 in that" "But instead, they've used a twin-turbocharged V8" "You kind of have to use turbochargers these days, if you want to meet emission targets" "Because you see, a turbo uses waste gases to force air into the engine more efficiently" "It's very eco" "Oh, I've just thought of something" "Turbos do something else as well" "This is immensely fast" "0-60, 3.5 seconds" "Top speed, 200 mph, we are on our way there now 110 mph, 116, 120... 8, 131, 135, 143..." "This is not performance, this is time travel!" "When I finish this lap, I should be 27-years-old!" "27, 27, 27..." "To try and show you how fast this car is" "I will now run a one-mile drag race, against this" "Yes, it's the terrible Jitter, but it's been driven by the Stig" "Some say he's going to lose, and he is" "But by how much?" "Ok, I should now engage Launch Control" "Left foot on the brake, push "Launch"" "Launch mode active, awaiting throttle" "Here comes the throttle" "Boost building 3, 2, 1" "Go!" "And we are going" "Are you looking at this, Mr. Fox?" "Your ordinary car, I'm afraid, it's been completely tranced" "So instead of writing to me, Mr. Fox just go down to the news agency, and buy some lottery scratch cards" "Then you could have one of these" "At 177 mph, I crossed the line" "And the wait began" "So, there you are, Mr. Fox another reason why I don't review cars like the Jitter the programs I make simply aren't long enough" "And it doesn't matter what Volkswagen you bring to the party" "This is the turbo-charged Porsche 911 GT2 RS the fastest Porsche of them all" "But the result will be exactly the same" "Ok, same trick" "Launch engaged" "3, 2 ,1" "Go" "Demolished it, absolutely demolished it!" "Frankly, you can bring any Volkswagen you like to the party" "It's gonna lose, and it's gonna lose badly" "Despite all the speed though this is rather more than just a big lump of philistine get-up and go" "The fact is that McLaren has won one in every four Grand Prix it's ever entered" "And to win a Grand Prix, you have to understand how to get a car round a corner fast" "Whole car is riddled, really, with F1 technology" "Oh, this is amazing, I actually feel the inside wheel being braked a little bit tugging the car in toward the apex" "They learn that in F1" "All four wheels are linked electronically, not mechanically" "Then there is the steering wheel which is the exact thickness of the wheel in Lewis Hamilton's car minus a bit for his gloves" "The gearbox is clever too" "In a normal car with a double-clutch system you have a butler, and he's always on hand with two gears at the ready in case you decide to go up or down" "In this though, it's got a pre-load system, also from F1" "So, when you first pull the lever a little bit, like this it tells the butler I'm about to change down" "Then when you pull it all the way, he's ready" "Your gear, sir" "It's even got an active rear wing, well when I say active it just turns into a massive air brake when you need to slow down in a big hurry" "It is brilliant, this" "And the bestest, most brilliant thing about it is the traction-control" "In most cars, when the sensors think you've overdone it they cut the power, bang!" "Like a slum landlord" "But in this, the whole system calls you into its office sits you down, gives you a cup of tea then just very gently suggests that perhaps you might need they hand" "So it's all very technical, but, there is a problem" "Since I first drive the MP4-12C" "McLaren has announced that the cars that customers buy will have a sharper throttle response, and they will make more noise" "They've also fitted this particular model with a McLaren branded whoopee cushion to show they have a sense of humor" "However, despite this, despite everything it still feels a bit soulless" "And I think I know why" "Pagani was started by a man called Horacio" "Ferrari by a man called Enzo" "Honda by a man called... something very exotic and unpronounceable" "Alfa Romeo by a man called Nicola" "And Lamborghini by a man called Ferruccio" "The McLaren, however, was born in the mind of a man called" "Ron" "It is a beautifully-made car, though and nicely-equipped" "it's very well-priced too" "But then, when it comes to the question of value for money there is almost nothing in the petrolheads' treasure chest that even gets close to this" "It's a Nissan GT-R" "And what I could do now is tell you about how it's made in a hermetically sealed factory and that all of the components are heated to the same temperature before assembly so they are in the same state of thermal expansion" "and how the tires are filled with nitrogen because it's more stable than air and how it got round the Nurburgring in 7:20" "But I'm not going to do that even though I just did and nor am I going to read you excerpts from the handbooks" "This one is just for the central command unit" "All that, for one feature" "And this one is for the rest of the car" "And what fascinates me most of all about this one is the first ten chapters are about pregnant women" "No, what I'm going to do instead, is an experiment" "You see, what we have here is a man, who is erecting a radar trap a trap that will show us how fast the Nissan can get round this corner" "And obviously, we now need a driver who can get the absolute maximum amount of it" "Some say that he is a Lotus F1 driver" "Jarno Trulli says he isn't" "All we know is, he's called Karun Chandhok" "So Karun, now, you are from Madras, I believe." "Yeah" "They speak Tamil there." "Yeah" "Good, cos I can speak fluent Tamil." "Excellent" "Well, I can say "left" and "right"" "Can you?" ""Buy" and "die"" "That's Hindi, Jeremy" "Hin..." "Is it?" "Yes, that's the wrong end of the country" "Is it?" "That is Hindi." "That is Hindi" "So I speak fluent Hindi?" "What do you speak?" "Are you Hindi or Tamil?" "I can speak both" "Can you?" "Yeah" "What I was hoping you could do is take the Nissan GT-R, are you familiar with that car?" "I've seen it a couple of times, yeah" "Ok." "Haven't had a go yet" "All right, what I'd like you try to do, is got round this corner here which is pretty fast, as quickly as you can" "Ok, I love a go, yeah" "So it's a "buy", this one, it's a right" "It's a right, yeah, it's quite quick, isn't it?" "Very" "You got a long straight behind us." "It's gonna be massive speed coming in" "How fast do you reckon?" "I can..." "It's going to be well over 250 km/h in one of these" "Through the corner, 160... 165 maybe" "So a 100-mph corner" "Ok, well, if you can do that and then we will see if there are any cars that we've got lying around in the pits can go faster than the Nissan" "Alright, sounds like good fun, yeah." "Good man" "Karun got into the Nissan and wound it up till it was fit to burst" "It went through the corner at 108.3 mph" "Next up, the Lamborghini LP570 Performante a car which costs nearly three times more than the Nissan" "And it went through the speed trap at 100.9 mph" "Next, Karun tried the Porsche GT2 RS" "Same man, same corner, same conditions" "And he ended up crashing having gone through the speed trap at just 102.9" "So, finally, we lined him up in the Jitter and that was a huge disappointment, I'm afraid" "Frankly, we can stand here all day but unless Karun can find something with slicks or... claws" "Nothing is gonna be faster than that GT-R" "Nothing!" "This is the perfect blend of electrical and mechanical engineering" "It is genuinely astonishing" "It's a kick in the teeth for God and the silly laws of physics" "And it's not all about cornering either as we shall now prove with a drag race against the McLaren MP4-12C" "Now, of course, in an ordinary drag race the McLaren will win easily, it's massively more powerful" "But we are not gonna have an ordinary drag race" "We are going to race from this white line here, to that one over there 16.5 meters away" "This, then, is a test of the cars' launch control systems" "It's a test of which one can get off the line with the most amount of violence" "This has got four-wheel drive, which is not what you want on a dry track and it's much heavier, so it can't really win" "But you never know" "I know, actually" "If we slow that down, we see that even though the McLaren gets away first it loses the lead almost immediately to Nissan's atom bomb" "And the GT-R crosses the line almost a full nose ahead" "To give you some idea of what it feels like to unleash the launch control in a GT-R" "I've set up a little demonstration" "Imagine, it's a lovely afternoon and you are sitting in your garden in a deck chair, reading a magazine" "Now, imagine someone drives into the back of you at 100 mph" "That is what it feels like" "And yet, despite everything this is a quiet car, a comfortable car" "It's not refined, it makes the noises racing cars make" "But they are subdued in the background" "It's hard to fault this car, it really is" "But I'm going to anyway" "Because you get the impression that it were human the person it would most like to be, is Adrian Newey very clever, but a bit serious" "This isn't" "This is the Citroen DS3 Racing" "And what this wants to be most of all, is a novelty pair of knickers" "It's not the hottest hot hatch" "But because of all the silly writing and the madness" "I believe it is the best" "Certainly, I believe it's better than Richard Hammond's favourite hot hatch the Fiat 500 Abarth CC" "And I also believe it's better than May's favourite, the Renault Clio Cup" "You may remember that we reviewed these three cars on Top Gear recently" "And you may recall that round the Monaco Grand Prix track, the Citroen was 5 seconds a lap faster than the Renault and the Fiat or was it me who is 5 seconds a lap faster than the idiots, Hammond and May?" "To get the answer" "I asked Karun to do a flat-out lap of the short circuit in the DS3 racing" "It's rare that we get a chance to see a F1 driver actually in his office at work normally they are encased in overalls" "But not this time, there he is, look we can see how hard they have to work" "He's sitting down, moving his arms about wrestling with that 1.6 turbo" "And now, here he is, in the little Fiat" "Come on!" "He's not pleased about something in there" "Oh dear, he was being jiggled about, that's probably what it was" "So 160 hp from its turbo-charged 1.4-litre engine" "Here he comes, round the last corner pretty much flat-out in that, and across the line" "So, now, the only non-turbocharge car we have the 2-litre Renault" "Much faster than the Lotus he's used to" "Yes." "Look at him!" "No, he's not, I thought he was sweating, he isn't" "Now he looks relaxed and calm" "And there we are" "Finished" "I have the results here, and... frankly, they are a bit embarrassing" "The Fiat did it in 1:13, that's the slowest, that's out of it" "The Citroen, 1:10" "Now, remember at Monaco, this was 5 seconds a lap faster than that" "Here, though, that was one second a lap faster than this" "So, there are two conclusions we can draw" "With the same driver at the wheel, the Renault is the fastest car" "That is one conclusion" "The other is, James May is absolutely useless!" "So, this is the fastest of the three" "I must say that from behind the wheel, it is difficult to see what the dopey old idiot was doing" "Cos this even feels fast" "The little Fiat is all about style" "And if I'm honest, the Citroen is like a sponge cake with writing on the roof" "It's very soft, it's very quiet, it's very comfortable" "This is none of those things" "On a road like this, twisting, turning, through the woods keep it on the boil, it's just electricly quick" "Brakes are good" "You do need to keep the revs up to get the best out of it" "I mean if you drop below 6,000 rpm, there is virtually nothing there at all" "But if you are prepared to work for a living and I think this is James's problem" "This is very good" "There are, however, some drawbacks" "There is no air-conditioning, no satellite-navigation, no anything, really" "It's just a chassis, a seat, and a steering" "That's all you get" "This is a car for serious drivers" "That said, it is incredibly noisy, as I shall now demonstrate" "This is the Citroen, and it's doing 70 mph in fourth gear" "The engine is turning over at just shy of 3,500 rpm" "So it's all very peaceful, and serene" "And now let's see what life is like in the Renault at the same speed, in the same gear" "This is turning over at 5,000 rpm" "That is bad for economy bad for emissions, if you care about that sort of thing and bad for your ears" "My ears hate this car" "And that's yet another reason why still I prefer the Citroen" "It may not be the fastest hatch, or the best value" "But it does come with lots of writing on the roof" "And for me, that's enough" "So now, let's move on from the ridiculous to the sublime" "What you see here are three 2-litre turbo diesel estate cars" "And none of them is as good as this" "This is the Eagle Speedster" "An almost totally rebuilt and redesigned E-Type Jag" "I described it on the television as the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen" "And I will stand by that" "It is" "And what's even more extraordinary is that the beauty is more than skin-deep" "This is Paul Brace" "Now Paul styled, engineered and pretty much built this, did you not?" "I did, yeah" "I think a lot of people look at this and think" ""That's an E-Type"" "But it actually isn't, is it?" "There has been an awful lot of subtle changes" "And the key is in the subtlety" "For example, the windscreen, that's..." "lower" "Yeah." "The windscreen is a lot lower, the windscreen is right back" "So it's more steeply raked like that way" "I mean, if you look at an original E-Type Jaguar, standing next to it the windscreen actually looks pretty vertical, to be honest" "It does, yeah" "I actually look straight through that chrome strip." "Yeah, that's because you are too tall" "So, is it..." "Have you dropped the floor down?" "The floor is dropped" "But the whole curved side profile has been dropped down to meet the floor" "And it just gives it a chunkier look" "The wheel arches have been cut up slightly higher which makes the whole thing look less clunky" "And the whole side of the car is... deeper." "It is deeper, yeah" "There's a less pronounced..." "Yeah, the side profile does flatten off very slightly in the middle of the wheel" "So every panel, in essence, is new?" "Yes, pretty well tweaked" "Everything has been exaggerated, and maybe charactered a little" "And it all aluminum." "It's all made in aluminum" "You're never gonna put this in production?" "No" "You just built it?" "Yeah, it was..." "Well, initially we built it, because a customer wanted something a bit special" "And so we built the first one as a one-off" "Once we stood back and looked at it, we were pleased at what we saw" "So we've built another one" "But if somebody came to you and said, "Look, here is half a million quid"" "would you build them another one?" "Yeah, we would." "You would?" "Yeah" "What about 470,000?" "Are we haggling here?" "Are we haggling for a deal?" "Honest, I'm not joking, it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen" "I mean, it's all these little screens and..." "Yeah, the key, it's all in the little details" "It's the little tiny details that matter so much on something like this" "And then, of course there is the detail of the roof" "Yeah, that's a little more than a major detail" "Really hasn't got one" "At all?" "No" "It's a toy" "What are these for, these little things?" "They are actually for a little shell cap so that when you walk away and leave it..." "Like a tunnel?" "Yes, like a tunnel cover" "This is very like the Antiques Roadshow, what we are doing here except nothing you've ever seen on the Antiques Roadshow, can do this" "That is the sound of a fuel-injected 4.7 litre straight-six" "Nice, isn't it?" "And if you think it sounds good with my foot down wait till you hear what happens when I lift it off the throttle" "What a sound!" "Why can't cars sound like this today?" "It's light, too" "Because the body is made from aluminum the whole car only weighs one ton" "Couple that to 340 torques and 310 horsepowers and it really is no slouch" "0-60 takes... a few seconds" "Top speed... who cares" "Honestly, I mean, you are only going to end up with bees in your eyes" "By modern day standards, this isn't that fast" "And it's the same story really, with the steering, it's a bit heavy and a bit vague" "And the ride and the handling are a bit old-fashioned" "But it doesn't matter" "The speed is just prefect, that's what it is" "Absolutely bang on" "The thing is though, no one who buys this car is going to expect the last word in precision" "What they are going to expect, and what they will get is a half a million pounds worth of dreams" "If a Martian came to Earth, and say" "You know, I don't really understand the appeal of the motorcar" "It just looks like a tool really, to me" "I would show him this scene" "These mountains, that sky, this precise car and say, "That is what makes a petrolhead"" "We may be driving through Wednesbury on a cold November day in a Ford Focus" "But this is what you're dreaming of being in a E-Type, in the south of France on a day like today, doing this" "I remember once reading the autobiography of a Spitfire pilot who talked about coming back from a mission" "Sun had gone down, he was flying over the White Cliffs of Dover" "And in the sort of twilight he could see the blue flames coming from the exhausts of his Merlin engine" "I remember thinking at the time, that's an incredibly powerful image" "This is another one" "It's all just... very perfect" "As an advertisement for the car it's hard to think of anything which could beat this" "Except perhaps this" "This of course, is a Jensen Interceptor" "Except for one thing, it isn't" "The glorious Italian styling remains unchanged, and thank god for that" "But, underneath the louvered bonnet" "The old 7.2 litre Chrysler engine has been thrown away and replaced with a 6.2 litre V8 from a Corvette" "This also has a Corvette gearbox and at the back, the rear axle from a Jaguar XJ-S" "The result is 0-60 in 4.5 seconds, and a top speed of 165 mph" "So, it's much faster than it was before, and much nicer to drive" "Because the live rear axle is gone it doesn't hop and skip about every time it runs over a pothole or seizes a plastic bag" "I mean, yes, the brakes judder a little bit and the gearbox is a bit slow to respond" "But that's ok because it's not really built for this sort of charging up and down mountain roads" "It's more a very comfortable, long-distance Grand Tourer" "But, as is the case with the Eagle Speedster don't for a moment think that this is like a modern car" "Because it isn't" "It has no anti-lock brakes, no airbags no satellite navigation, no electrically adjustable seats, no... no automatic wipers, no automatic headlights no... anything really" "And I don't care" "Because this is an Interceptor" "And that is the best name ever put on the back of a car" "Interceptor!" "Just try saying this" "Hey, darling, tonight should we take the Interceptor?" "I mean, what else are you going to take?" "For me, half the fun of a car is arriving at your destination" "You imagine pulling up outside one of your friends' houses in this" "They are gonna come out, they are going to coo they are gonna say, "Nice wheels!"" "That's really the appeal of this car, arriving somewhere" "And really for that, this is in a class of its own" "However, for the business of actually getting to your destination you can do better" "This is a Ferrari 458" "And yes, I know" "I drove one in last year's program" "I also drove one on Top Gear" "And I reviewed one in the Sunday Times" "So why then, am I now driving it again?" "Well, there is a very good reason" "I like it" "I realize, of course, that in every tangible way the McLaren MP4-12C that we looked at earlier is better" "But in every intangible way this batters the big Brit's bottom batters it!" "You see, the McLaren doesn't make noises like that" "It doesn't sing to you" "May not be quite as fast through the corners" "May not be quite so good under braking" "And it certainly isn't as fast in a straight line" "But, there is just something about this thing" "It like driving something that's actually alive" "What it does in fact, is it works a fine line between the technical brilliance of the MP4-12C and the sheer lunacy of... say a Mercedes SLS" "Just one of the best cars in all of human history ever, it is!" "The car, it's what Ferrari does" "Except that now, what Ferrari does is this, as well" "This is the FF" "The most enormous, and most startling new Ferrari... ever!" "This is the first Ferrari ever, to have a hatchback" "And with the rear seats folded down, there is more space in there than there is in the back of a Renault Scenic" "It's also the first Ferrari to have four-wheel drive" "But it's not a conventional system" "You see, in a normal four-wheel drive car the engine sends its power to a transfer box in the middle of the car" "That then splits it" "Some goes down a propshaft to the back wheels" "Some goes down a propshaft to the front wheels" "Now, Ferrari say, that if you have a propshaft going to the front wheels you have to lift the engine up a bit to make room for it" "And they say that's bad for looks more importantly, bad for handling" "Now, someone said that to me in a meeting, I would have said" "Bad for handling, really?" "So in this, the power goes to the back as normal" "But, when sensors detect that the rear wheels are unable to cope a small gearbox at the front of the engine, powered by the crank itself, is energized" "It is a fantastically complicated solution" "But does it work?" "You know what, it is hard to say" "You can't really get this thing to misbehave at all" "But, is that because of the front-wheel drive coming in?" "Or just because it's a very well-sorted chassis?" "I mean, front wheels never take more than 30% of the power and that's hard to feel" "And then because the front-mounted gearbox only has two speeds it doesn't work at all, once you pass 130 mph which I am now" "The fact is, the FF does not feel like a four-wheel drive car" "And that's probably because, 99% of the time it isn't one" "But does it feel like a Ferrari?" "Does it feel like a Ferrari?" "Yeah" "Oh, yeah" "The 6.3-litre V12 is a thing of genuine magnificence 660 hp, 503 torques and a sound to tingle a man's tingly bits" "The double clutch gearbox is also absolutely brilliant" "Well, it's brilliant here on the track obviously in a town it's a bit annoying and jerky" "But listen to this" "Ready?" "Bang!" "And ready... coming up to 8,000 rpm." "Fourth!" "And coming up to 8,000 rpm again" "Fifth!" "Oh, that's quick" "Then you got the steering, it's almost ridiculously light" "Lighter than, really any other car" "And yet despite that, I know exactly what the front wheels are doing all the time" "And even going round this corner at this speed" "I can still tell I'm not getting any power" "That's how good the chassis is on this car" "Because even at these speeds the sensors are happy to let all of the power go to the back" "Of course, it's not all perfect" "As in 458, they've festooned the steering wheel with all of the buttons" "So, none of them are ever where you left them" "That's the left-hand indicator" "But obviously when you're going around the corner, you will find it on the right" "Then you need the light switcher, were there" "No, that.." "You see, now it's the wiper switch" "However, unlike the 458" "You can at least now have a speedometer and satellite navigation" "You don't have to choose between them" "You can also have many other electronic things" "Besides, none of which make much sense" "All in all though, it is a genuinely good car" "But is it as good as the 458?" "So, look what I've got in front of me 458 being driven by my man Nicky, who's a racing driver" "Oh, there is the Jitter" "Is the 458 faster than the mighty Volkswagen?" "Yes, it is" "I've got it" "Now, I want to make it absolutely plain we are not racing here, that will be stupid" "Except of course, we are racing, and the race will be over when I get past" "I should imagine it won't take very long to get past the 458 for a number of reasons" "I'm..." "I'm a better driver, there is the first one in my mind" "I also have 90 more horsepower, four-wheel drive, and four more cylinders" "That said, this does weigh 300 kg more than the mid-engine baby" "I love Ferraris" "They just feel different to other cars" "And when I say different, I mean better" "There is a lightness to them" "What they do is they scamper" "Some cars lope, some spring, some grip the modern Ferrari scampers, it's like a little puppy on a wall" "It's all..." "There is no other way I can put this, he's pulling away from me" "And since I'm a better driver, as we've established" "That must mean, the 458 is considerable faster than this" "And what I need, realistically now, to get past is some snow, or at the very least a light sprinkling of rain" "This seemed unlikely" "But then, joy of joys some golden rain was provided by the crew at the bottom end of the circuit" "Yes, it's wet ahead, it's wet ahead" "He's gone" "He's gone, there we are, he's out of it" "Yes" "So, a valuable lesson I think we've learned there" "Most of the time, the 458 is faster than the FF" "But, if you encounter a puddle of... wee you really do need four-wheel drive, or you could be in big trouble" "So, how do we sum this car up?" "I think on a track, it's out of its depth" "It's too big, and it's too soft" "And I think, having pounded round in it all day there is a question mark over its brakes" "I also don't think it will work very well in a ski resort certainly won't on those tyres" "There are some other things as well" "It's wider than a Range Rover Sport, so it's not practical in town" "And I'm sorry, but that back end, there is no other word it is ugly" "But, it is a very good grand tourer" "It's very comfortable, and very quiet" "Most importantly of all though, it feels, despite everything, like a Ferrari" "The funny thing is though, the Ferrari purists would scoff at the FF" "They would say it's too big, too heavy, and too complicated" "They would say that a real Ferrari should be a bit more, like this" "Designed and built in Cheshire, you would imagine it would be fitted with gold taps, and a steering wheel made from onyx" "But no" "Styled to look like an F-22 Raptor it uses a 2.3-litre Cosworth engine and a F3 spec Hewland sequential gearbox" "It has fully adjustable push-rod suspension, and a central driving position" "You even have a choice of soft or super soft tyres" "Do not, however, be fooled into thinking it's a hardcore racing car" "Because it's a bit more than that" "Unlike any racing car I've ever seen, this has a boot which is big enough, as you can see to carry, I don't know, a small dog" "Then, and I'm not making this up this material here and along here was designed for use in old peoples' homes" "It doesn't go moldy when it gets wet" "But best of all, there is space in that cockpit for someone like me or someone who is actually me" "It is surprisingly easy to drive" "The clutch is light, not that you really need it" "The steering is light, the visibility is good got indicators, you can easily drive this on the road" "You look a bit silly, but you could" "I'm not on the road though" "So, let's see what's what" "I was expecting it to be savage, like an Ariel Atom" "But it isn't" "The figures suggest, it will do 0-60 in less than 3 seconds and then flat out, depending on the gearing, it will do 170 mph" "So it's fast, but it's not scary fast" "And there is more good news" "Normally in a very light car like this and once again I have the V8 Atom in mind" "You have an enormous amount of understeer, through just about every corner" "Not in this, you don't" "Hahaha..." "It's just grip and grip, and grip, and then it switches to very controllable oversteer" "It is absolutely wonderful" "This is what a Ferrari should be like" "I properly love this thing" "If I was a girl, I'd love it even more" "Because my god, there is a vibration through the seat" "Because it's so good, and so easy to drive, and so not scary" "I came up with another experiment" "I asked Karun to climb aboard and set a lap time round the short circuit at Paul Ricard" "When he's finished, and we can monitor his progress here on these TV screens we shall see how close I can get to it" "Because I reckon, in a car like that, there will be no real difference between him, a F1 driver, and me, a fat man in slacks" "140 mph, he's gonna go hard on the brakes" "He's braked too soon, I think" "And I think, I will be braking well later than that" "As he now moving, here he comes to the trees" "That was a lovely corner there" "He is using all of the road" "Being a Lotus driver" "I should imagine this is the furtherest he's ever been without a breakdown" "And what's good about this car I'm driving it is I can concentrate on braking in the right place, rather than braking to stay alive" "That's the problem with a really, really fast single-seater is you are so frightened by it all the time, it's so uncomfortable" "You don't really concentrate on doing a fast lap, you're just concentrating on not dying" "There he is, finished" "Now, watch and learn, sunshine" "Ok, here we go!" "Second for this." "No worries there." "Cutting the corner slightly." "Yeah, come on." "Now this is brilliant" "It's just so responsive" "Very late on the brakes" "Oh, run a bit wide but that's okay" "I may have made a mess of that ... and this" "Oh, deary me" "Right" "I shall now go back, find the results and humiliate Karun" "This is going to be a deeply, deeply embarrassing moment for the young man" "So?" "Jeremy" "Your best lap" "Can I lean in here?" "That's what they always do 1:07.5" "My best time, 1:07.3" "No!" "You are right, it is no" "It's 1:09, which means you are 1.5 seconds a lap faster than me" "And that means... you are sacked" "What?" "Sacked" "What do you mean I'm sacked?" "I don't want to talk to you any more" "Humiliated." "I know that I'm a fat man in slacks, but..." "Get out of my sight" "And when I get Jarno Trulli next year, someone my own age" "Right, time now, I think, for the finale" "The best car launched in 2011" "This is a BMW 535 M Sport diesel" "And its range of ability simply boggled the mind 0-60, takes 5.5 seconds" "The top speed, like pretty much everything else these days, is 155 mph" "This is a quick car" "I'm not going to call it sporty, that will be idiotic" "But for something so enormous the body control is just fantastic" "It's so well-sorted" "Ready" "Opposite lock" "There is no pitching and rolling, and wallowing, it just gets on with it" "But because the engine runs on diesel" "You can do 50 mpg" "And that... that means you only need to fill it up once every 800 miles" "If you hate filling up as much as I do, that is utter joy" "It's also a very good-looking car" "It's well-priced, and in touring form, it's practical as well" "But the best thing about it is the comfort" "It is so quiet and so well-made and these head restraints honestly, it's like resting your head on ETs' faces" "The BMW 535 Diesel M Sport is a rare thing a car that simply cannot be faulted" "It's brilliant" "All things considered, it is the best car of the year" "But it is not my favourite car from this program" "For my, the most important thing in a car, is fun" "It has to make you happy" "And the 535, for all its all-round brilliance, does not do that" "Nor does the Skyline" "It's technically astonishing, and it can tear your head off" "But it rarely puts a smile on your face" "Neither does the McLaren" "And neither does the Ferrari FF" "And neither, if I'm honest, does the 458" "The Mono might have done" "But it broke down before we could find out" "For me then, the most fun cars we have seen in this program are, in reverse order" "In 3rd place, the Lamborghini Performante" "In 2nd place, the Eagle Speedster" "And the winner well, it's this" "The BMW 1M" "Fun!" "With too many performance car these days too much emphasis is placed on how fast they can go round a corner not how much fun you can have in the process" "This though..." "Hahaha" "Having a laugh, big laugh!" "This is a grin" "And that is the end of the program" "Thank you very much for watching, and good bye" "Thank Finalgear Forum for their generous help" "Subtitled by Captain_Fast, China"