Episode 4 Top Gear: Extra Gear

Hi, I'm George Lewis. Welcome to Extra Gear. Coming up...

we take you behind the scenes on Rory's Twingo GT film...

Shall we put some money on who's going to have the first prang?

It will definitely be me. I'll definitely crash.

I feel quite crashy today.

..Chris Harris gets his hands on the Bentley Mulsanne Speed

and decides whether it's time to sack the chauffeur...

It weighs so much and it will still slide!

..and we take a closer look at the new Chiron.

That's right, this is Extra Gear.

APPLAUSE

So, tonight the Renault Twingo GT was hailed as

a baby hot hatch by the king of hot hatches himself, Mr Rory Reid.

So the Twingo feels most at home in the city.

Oh, and inside a life-size recreation of

a popular '80s arcade game.

Extra Gear was behind-the-scenes when it all came to life.

Take a look.

Introducing the new Renault Rory.

How you doin'?

Hello to Extra Gear.

We are here in bloody cold Manchester,

somewhere between the containers.

And we're going to have fun all night long.

Welcome to the maze.

We've rebuilt a very popular 1980s arcade game out of giant containers.

It's about 100 metres wide from side to side, about 50 metres deep.

And we've got our ghosts, which are here, these two cars.

And we've got our Twingo.

It's going to drive in here, meet these two cars

and cause a bit of havoc.

Shall we put some money on who's going to have the first prang?

It'll definitely be me. I'll definitely crash.

-I feel quite crashy today.

-SHE CHUCKLES

We've got one night to do it.

It's kind of like a feature film in one evening.

Hopefully, we'll be all right.

'With the maze needing to be filmed in darkness,

'the race was on to get everything done before sunrise.

'The clock was ticking for everyone, including us presenters.'

Let me rock the mic. One-two, one-two.

BARKING

Just get in the cars!

Please!

Can we please get you in your car?

For the final time, can we get all presenters in cars, please?

-But he's not in his car yet.

-Just get in the car!

Mate, you're good. Keep going.

Yeah, you're good, you're good.

Watch out for Harris.

-Bit quicker, Harris.

-Oi, oi, oi, oi, oi!

He's really confident in a hatchback.

I'd like to see him in a fast car.

I'm the king of the underpowered hatchbacks.

OK, we're going to go for it. I'm going to cue them.

OK, going to call action.

Can we at least stand by?

Three, two, one, go.

Right!

OK, let's go. Give me then dots. Give me then tasty dots!

Go, go!

'As I raced around the maze gobbling up the lights...'

Yes, yes!

'..the crew were hard-pressed to keep up and keep out of shot.'

Drone going to the right-hand side above.

I can't be stopped.

I'm a light-eating god.

Whoo! We've got him!

Whoa-ho! Bye-bye.

I love it, guys. Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you, cut.

'Every failed attempt resulted in a lengthy wait whilst the crew

'reset for the next run.

'All we had to do was stay out of the way

'and try not to break anything.'

I can't see this light underneath me.

-CRUNCH

-Oh, that was it, wasn't it?

You killed already one light, Harris?

That was the idea.

Watch out, Sabine. Watch out, Sabine. Bang!

-Bang!

-SHE LAUGHS

CRUNCHING

-They're...

-CRUNCH

-Scheisse!

-SHE GRUMBLES IN GERMAN

I'm winning at the moment, Rory. I've done two lights.

You haven't done any.

That's not the idea. It's...

Harris, how have you managed to run over a light in a straight line?

-DIRECTOR:

-Here we go. Please do not break any lights.

Stop if you think you're going to break them.

OK, Rory, just give them a bit of room to come out behind you, yeah?

CRUNCH

RORY LAUGHS

CHRIS LAUGHS

CONTINUES LAUGHING

'After losing valuable time taking care of the broken lights...'

Good job!

OK, clear the back row. Here we go.

'..my second attempt was underway.

'It was time to employ some tactics.

'In other words, I hid.'

Think stealth. Think Ninja.

Oh! Don't mind if I do.

Oh, hello.

TYRES SQUEAL

OK, that's not working.

Rear-wheel drive not an advantage here.

Now I'm in!

Kind of dark in here.

'My tactics were working well.

'Perhaps a little too well.'

So, I opened my window.

Maybe I can hear him somewhere.

You're not really very good at stealth, are you, Sabine?

I talk too much, you mean?

Where's Rory? This direction?

-Where's what?

-Rory?

-Rory?

Where's Rory?

Rory, where are you?

Yeah, I'm here. I'm in a...

I'm in a maze in the '80s.

-Where are you?

-SHE LAUGHS

'It was time for me to pack it in and man up.'

I got him, I got him!

'Tracking and filming the cars around the maze

'was a time-consuming task.

'Even the drone needed recharging every 11 minutes.

'So, by the time I'd lost my second life,

'the night had slipped into early morning.'

Rory, when you come and help me out on my films and do little

bit parts, all you have to do is come into Dunsfold in the daytime.

Whereas I have to film through the night on a weekend.

So never ever complain at me again.

Yeah, but think of the fun you're having.

It's now...

4.57 in the morning.

And we're still filming around the containers.

It's been a wonderful night's work.

But I'm pretty broken now.

-DIRECTOR:

-And three, two, one, go.

'As the sun threatened to rise, it was time for my last attempt.'

Nearly there, Twingo.

I wonder what happens if you drive an Up into a shipping container.

'Before Chris had a chance to find out, I had achieved victory.'

RORY LAUGHING

'But at what cost?'

Get in!

It's not really Colin McRae winning the World Championship, is it?

Loser!

-DIRECTOR:

-Rory, Sabine, Chris, you are a wrap.

Thank you very much for your efforts, guys. Cheers.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.

-Yes, yes!

-HE LAUGHS

APPLAUSE

Back from their long night in Manchester, it's Chris and Rory.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

How you doing, mate? Hey.

So, have you recovered from Manchester?

-Erm...

-The place or the night's work?

The night's work.

That was a tough night.

Now, I know there's no sob story here, and no sympathy,

but in the previous week, I'd been to Kazakhstan

for five days and then gone straight to Daytona to film the FXXK,

-came straight back and...

-Aw(!)

-..had to go straight and do that.

By which stage, Rory was full of sympathy for me,

but I was pretty ropey.

Those night shoots are fascinating because most of our job is spent

battling the onset of darkness, isn't it? You know what it's like.

-Yes.

-We're fighting to get there before it gets dark.

This was the other way round.

We were trying to get it done before the sun came up.

Everyone's broken, everyone's a bit more tired than usual,

a bit more argumentative, bit more angry.

Can you imagine that?

That maze, that was huge.

That was about the size of a football pitch.

Absolutely enormous.

Each container is 8.5 feet tall and some of them are double stacked,

so you've got 17 feet of container and driving around in that,

you can't really see what's around the next bend.

Then you've got to consider where the crew are,

so you don't run anyone over.

You've got to try and work out the best path to take to try

and get the dots. And it's... It is an absolute...

-Well, it's a maze!

-LAUGHTER

Yes, it's a maze.

It's also an interesting style of driving because you think

you can get really close to things and you can shave things,

but you don't, do you?

Because the tyres are quite soft and squidgy and there's

a bit of sidewall in there, so you can't be as gung ho as you'd think.

And also, a shipping container's an immobile object, you know.

-If you hit that, it's going to hurt.

-Yes, absolutely.

Well, there was one obstacle which proved quite tricky for these cars.

Maybe it was a driver issue, though.

I can't see this light underneath me.

-CRUNCH

-Oh,

-BLEEP,

-that was it, wasn't it?

They are everywhere!

-CRUNCH

-Scheisse!

-CRUNCH

-Oops!

LAUGHTER

Yeah, after a while, I just gave up.

I'm like, "Oh, screw it!"

Now, you think that those were bathroom lights,

but they were specially designed... No, they were bathroom lights.

-LAUGHTER

-Two for a pound!

And they were connected with one cable.

I mean, the bloke that set them up - genius!

-It was his life's work.

-Yeah.

And then these rock apes turn up and the first thing you do

is you drive onto one.

I was just staggered at how poor my positional awareness was.

Because if you say, "Drive over it,"

you've got these wheels that should go either side of it

and the first one, I hit and thought,

this is going to be really bad.

-And then I tried to reverse back and I hit the other one.

-Yeah.

The worst ones were the ones on the corner because you could

actually position your wheels either side of the light biscuit and

turn around it, but then your inside rear-wheel catches it

as you turn right or left or whatever. So you...

It's basically a guessing game as to whether you're going to hit

the light, but, yeah, like I said, in the end I just gave up.

And there were these poor dudes that had to come out

and replace the lights and I ran over one, he replaced it...

-A dude?

-No, no! The light!

-Ran over a light.

-I ran over a light.

Bloke runs out, replaces the bathroom light and then

he ran away again and I reversed straight over it.

-LAUGHTER

-Again. It was a nightmare.

And, of course, as it got later and later,

you became less and less capable of driving around the lights.

We were a shambles, really.

When you think of a rear-wheel drive,

rear-engined sports car, you don't immediately imagine a Twingo.

But you seemed to have quite a good time in it.

They stitched me up good and proper, but... I'll take it, man.

The thing about the Twingo GT is that it's fun, bottom line.

One of the great pleasures of driving isn't necessarily

going fast, it's going through the motions of driving a car

in a way that implies speed so, you put it in first gear...

You accelerate, you watch the rev needle build.

Change up to second gear, watch the rev needle build and you just

wring it out and you push the car to its limits. You stretch it.

You can't do that in something like a Chiron because you have to

change at 3,000 rpm, and you can't keep accelerating through the gears

to get to the car's ultimate performance.

But in the GT, you can.

-So you think the Twingo's better than a Chiron?

-No.

I think what's interesting about the Twingo is that in principle,

I love the idea.

I love the idea that a manufacturer's been brave enough

to make an ordinary car that has an unconventional layout.

The problem is, it doesn't feel rear-wheel drive enough for me.

Yeah, we tried all sorts of things to switch the traction off

completely, but it just... It kept kicking in, which is the reason

I couldn't do my victory doughnut properly.

-That and a lack of skill.

-LAUGHTER

But, you know, in some instances, you can actually get the tail to

waggle just a tiny bit, maybe, like, six inches and you get a rough

approximation of what it's like to drive a rear-wheel drive car.

Can we talk about the Brabus Smart car because that sounds

like a bit of a contradiction in terms, is it not?

There's always been a Brabus kit for the Smart.

Since the very start, there's somehow been this need

to go faster the car that is the least go faster car on the planet.

I've never really understood it.

But that one's actually quite pokey now, isn't it?

And it's quite a sporty bit of kit,

so I can see merit in the Brabus Smart thing.

I mean, Tinie has Brabus-ed his Smart. Many people do.

I'm staggered at how much people spend Brabus-ing their Smarts.

Chris, it's from one extreme to the other for you.

Why don't you tell us what you're thrashing around the track tonight?

OK, George.

When you think Bentley, you think luxury.

Built-in picnic hampers and, as we saw earlier, curtains.

It's a car that you aspire to own but not necessarily drive.

That's for your chauffeur to take care of, but Bentley claims

that its Mulsanne Speed will entice you back into the driver's seat.

Well, let's see.

The Bentley Mulsanne Speed has, wait for this...

..530 horsepower, but most importantly,

811 foot pounds of torque.

Those are the numbers you normally find in a boat.

It costs £252,000 and - would you believe it? -

Bentley wants you to decide as an owner

whether you want to drive this thing or sit in the back.

It's that good to drive, apparently.

Well... A little slide.

I can't believe that.

It weighs so much, and it will still slide.

Quite sprightly, you know. I mean, it feels enormous,

but it's so comfortable and my heated seat is just magnificent.

Look at that, slidey slidey.

Oh, yes!

About 250 millimetres less wheelbase, but we're 45kg lighter.

It's like an RS version. Can you imagine?

It's just absurd!

Every other car I've driven so far today cannot handle standing water,

but the Mulsanne is so big and heavy, it just sort of

ploughs its way through, forcing those tyres into the surface.

That shouldn't be possible.

What a ridiculous car! I love it.

The engine is a push rod V8, which is insane.

They built a new push rod V8.

This is old tech made because it gives a sense of character

to the car which sounds bizarre, but it works.

It's an eight-speed gearbox. The engine only revs to 4,500 rpm,

but it suits the character of the car because it accrues speed.

It doesn't so much accelerate as just sort of get there.

Oh, yes. The slippery bit on second-to-last is lethal.

What the hell is Gambon going to be like?

Shall we slide round it? Go on, one more side.

And over the line sideways in a £252,000 limousine.

APPLAUSE

Chris, that car, it takes 400 hours to assemble by hand and then

another 12 hours just to polish it and you treat it like that?

You could wreck it in a matter of minutes.

It's a genuinely absurd motor vehicle. I love it.

It shouldn't be able to do that and it's really,

totally needless to develop it to that level of performance,

but they did because they could.

Would you have a chauffeur or would you rather drive it yourself?

I would definitely drive the vehicle. I think it's great.

-Rory, what do you think of this?

-I think it's great.

I think it's ludicrous that it's able to do that stuff and

slide around, but the key thing is still what it's like in the back.

I mean, if you sit back there, you've got these tablets that

rise out of the seats in front of you at the press of a button.

It's got these, like, foot rests in the back.

It's proper aeroplane-style seats.

It's got a fridge in between the rear seats.

It's just the perfect car for being driven around in.

So this wouldn't... It wouldn't tempt you

-into the driving seat, then?

-It wouldn't, no,

but the thing about Bentleys is they're actually brilliant cars

to drive as well and what they do to make it luxurious is really special.

But they don't think of the driver.

Now, from luxury to pure speed.

Chris, tonight we saw you drive the Chiron.

Now, this car is all about performance.

It's taken over from the Veyron as the world's fastest production car

and, Chris, you had the honour of being

the first journalist to drive it.

How was that, mate?

Well, it's an average day at the office, really. No, it was...

It was one of the best days of my working life.

It was absolutely magnificent.

We had an empty runway.

We didn't have access to the second key,

which actually doesn't worry me as much as I thought it would.

Erm... What is really impressive is that it's much more than

a straight line exercise.

It's a rounded car that excites on so many levels,

but you never tire of just pinning it

and looking at the numbers come up on the speedo. It's amazing.

What does it feel like?

Erm... It's...much noisier in terms of engine intake noise

than I'd expected.

It's surprisingly lively.

There's an interesting piece of physics going on

with the car when you accelerate.

So, the car's all about tyre pressures, OK?

But what happens is,

you get your pressures up and start your run going fast, but the airflow

over the front tyres is so severe because it's accelerating

and it's channelling air through the front rads,

that they cool the tyres down, so the pressures drop.

So as you go up through, you expect tyre pressures to rise.

They don't. They suddenly drop.

So you find yourself with warnings pinging off the whole time.

You have to do two runs to get the pressures up

and then it starts to get really stable.

The aerodynamics are fascinating as well. Have you got time?

-I could talk about this for a while. So, basically...

-He likes this.

Sorry!

It's channelling air in through the front rads there

and then accelerating it down the side of the car.

So, it's effectively a side downforce.

So, if you try and turn the wheel at 180,

the car does not want to budge really at all.

It's just been held there. It's like a bike.

When you try and roll over on a bike at high speed, you can't.

-So it's just built to go really, really fast.

-Nice, nice.

-What does it feel like?

-LAUGHTER

-Really fast!

-OK, good.

-Yeah!

And, Rory, so, Chris was saying in the film that obviously

he loved his car, but it wasn't the revolutionary car

that the Veyron was back in the day.

Did you expect this to change the game a little bit more?

I mean, the Veyron did change the game.

It came out and they set a new benchmark.

When the Chiron came out,

I think everyone kind of half-expected them

to go down the route of hybridisation,

adding batteries and electric motors and all this stuff.

And I was a little bit disappointed it didn't.

It seemed like it was using similar technology,

but I actually respect what they've done with the Chiron because what

they've done is they said, "Look, we're not going to take the easy way

"of adding more power which is to add batteries and electric motors,

"we are going to wring every last drop of performance

"out of what we have."

And made it more insane than the Veyron, more desirable,

and for that, I salute them.

And another thing it does actually faster than the Veyron

is guzzle fuel.

So, the Veyron could empty its 100 litre tank in under 12 minutes.

The Chiron takes under nine.

So just to put that into perspective,

and I'm not saying that it's a better car than the Chiron,

but for comparison, my Megane... LAUGHTER

..could do over 750 minutes on 100 litres.

-They're impressed.

-So it's a better car.

-It's a better car, then.

-I'm not saying that.

It's a bit of a useless stat, that one, actually.

Bugatti also states that if you run flat out for 35 miles on the tyres,

you need to replace them.

So I suspect you'd need to have five sets of tyres

before you even emptied the tank.

So the Megane is...better.

-A better car.

-Shit.

-LAUGHTER

In Dubai, you weren't always just flooring it at the top speed.

You were also covering a lot of distance and that meant

you had to eat on the move.

Eating on the move in the Chiron.

This is called a...

an energy ball.

Hazelnut and raisin.

Could it look more like a dog poo if it tried?

That is a nugget of dog poo.

Some of the tastiest dog poo you'll ever eat.

Actually, is it actually a poo?

Matt LeBlanc was actually seen

tampering with the snacks at one point.

LAUGHTER

That's disgusting.

Look, I'm cruising along in my hyper-car

and I've got some snacks there.

Matt LeBlanc was in the back of the EWB Bentley,

not unlike this one here, with the cooler, a fridge and probably

a three-course meal being served to him by the Emirati Stig.

It wasn't really fair, but looking back now,

it did look suspiciously like a nugget of dog poo.

Well, on that very weird note, that's all we have time for tonight.

Rory, what have we got on next week's show?

All right, well, George and I show you how to off-road UK-style

and by that, I mean in the mud.

Chris gets his hands on one of the Ford GT's closest

but much less expensive rivals, the Nissan GTR.

And Eddie and Sabine drop by to talk King Of The Hammers.

Don't miss it.

We'll see you next week for more Extra Gear. Goodnight.

APPLAUSE