Episode 1 Best of Top Gear

Tonight, we are going to have a race and it's a very,

very important one because it's to see which is fastest,

Jeremy in a car or me on a sailing boat.

First of all, we needed a course.

OK, now the producers suggested we go from Great Yarmouth

up the North Sea to Edinburgh.

Or, perhaps from Aberystwyth down through the Irish Sea to say,

the Lizard point in Cornwall. But then, James and I had a better idea.

Yes, we did.

Welcome to New Zealand.

The perfect location for our duel.

Pretty landscapes for Jeremy to drive through

and most importantly for me, sea that's warm.

So, our race. This is what New Zealand looks like.

This is the bit we're interested in, blown up for you here.

I shall be starting from this very beach which is here on the map

and racing up here to the second most northerly point in New Zealand.

Jeremy, meanwhile, will have to go down here, through

the centre of Auckland and all the way up here to reach the same point.

So I only have to cover 220 miles.

Jeremy has to cover 410.

To make matters even worse for Jeremy,

35% of New Zealand's roads are unpaved.

Which would slow him down. And this is what he'd be up against.

It's called an AC45 and it's the fastest production sailing boat in the world.

With a carbon fibre hull and a rigid

sail as big as the wing on a Boeing 737, it can reach over 30 knots.

Then there's the crew.

All but one are winners of the America's Cup,

the most prestigious trophy in yacht racing.

And as for the one who isn't, well, he's Sir Ben Ainslie,

four-times Olympic sailing gold medallist.

Your wing!

Put all this together, and Jeremy hasn't got a chance.

I do realise the enormity of the challenge I face, which is

why I have gone for the fastest car in the world. Here it is.

-It's a Toyota Corolla.

-Is that what it is? I haven't looked.

-Yes, it is.

-It's a 1.8 litre Toyota Corolla.

Engine size is irrelevant, James,

because do you know what makes this so fast?

Look in the window.

-I've rented it.

-Oh, no.

-Yes.

And this is the thing, you see.

I mean, a Bugatti Veyron, sometimes you're using 15 horsepower,

sometimes you're using only ten.

This, you've got 140 horsepower from the moment you start it up

-to the moment you crash it.

-Did you pick up one of those...

What are they called? Collision damage waiver forms?

No, I picked up six. I did!

Her back was turned, I thought, "I'll have some of those!"

So you're ready?

-I'm really ready for this.

-Everybody else ready?

Right, this race will start at precisely seven o'clock

tomorrow morning.

-Beer?

-Yes, beer.

OK. Pre-flight check. Complete.

There's the boat.

Soon it will be pointing in the correct direction

and the race will begin.

Eventually the boat had done its jibing and sheeting

and going about and all the crew were at their stations.

And so, at precisely 7.11am, the race began.

Three, two, one...

HORN

Go!

Come on!

OK, we're racing. We're going. Go, boys. Whenever ready.

Power!

This is not simply a race between a sailing boat

and a little blue hatchback. I am on a mission from God.

Because the world has got it into its head that wind power is

the solution to everything and I just don't think it is.

Wind is just annoying.

Internal combustion is good.

And at that moment, it looked like I may have had a point.

-The wrong sails?

-Yes.

When you say the wrong sail, where is the other sail?

-It's right in front of us.

-In that bag?

With the sails having to be swapped over quickly,

the crew got very shouty with me.

Whoa, James - pull on that rope!

James, what are you doing there? Get in and help!

The boat was stationary, just 200 metres from the start line.

Things were looking good - for Jeremy.

Oh, wow! Big one!

It was PJ O'Rourke, the American author,

who first noticed that hire cars are the fastest cars in the world

and he is, of course, completely correct.

Because when was the last time you took your car to the red line

or you drove it flat out? Never.

But here, in this, now, yes!

Because it isn't mine.

Speed!

Back at sea, the new sail was up.

But we still weren't going fast enough.

12 knots, which is about 40mph in car terms.

That's not bad but at that rate, it would take us 15 hours.

That's no good.

Despite the gravel roads, I was going quite a lot faster.

100 kilometres an hour right there, into fourth.

Maybe going a little too fast there, but it's not my car,

so it doesn't matter.

Just feel so sorry for James.

He's on a boat. He's not going to see anything of New Zealand,

the prettiest country in the wor...OOOG!

I hit something.

After its wonky start, the boat was finally starting to stretch its legs.

How fast are we going? 25 knots. That's tremendous.

We're about eight miles from the shore, so we've got 200 miles to run.

This speed, however, did have its downsides.

What's my rank on this trip, skipper?

Am I the coxswain or the bosun or the... Roger the cabin boy?

-Right now, you're the cabin boy.

-Cabin boy.

That would be all right if you had a cabin.

Oh, it's accident report form.

"Was Avis vehicle on correct side of the road?" Yes, I was.

"Explain how accident occurred." A maniac came the other way.

"State who in your opinion was responsible for the accident."

Him! Him! He was mad.

Right. Onwards!

OK. Three, two, one, diving!

Ow!

Come on, James. Put some effort in!

This is so catastrophically uncomfortable as a way to travel.

THUNDER

The £65-a-day hire car and the £700,000 boat hunkered down

and pressed on.

Tarmac, white lines.

-We've covered 36 miles.

-36?

-Our course is 310.

Imagining that I was well in the lead, I pulled over to call James.

PHONE RINGS

-Hello.

-'James May!.'

-'Yes. Hello?'

'What speed are you doing?'

We've been cracking along at 23- knots-plus at some points. It goes like stink.

23 knots. Wow!

'Is it in berth, James?'

No, I want to say it's bloody uncomfortable and unpleasant

but Sir Ben Ainslie is sitting next to me, so I can't really say that.

Can you congratulate him

for how good he was in both Ghandi and Sexy Beast?

At this point, the producers showed me a tracking device that

revealed where James actually was.

Oh, my giddy aunt!

That can't be right. According to this, you're miles ahead of me.

Are you still talking to me? I can't hear you.

Yes. Get off the phone. I'm busy.

Hello?

James was 170 miles from the finish line, whereas I,

because of the unique way New Zealand is shaped,

was still heading in the wrong direction with 340 miles to go.

What if I lose this race, people?

If you're campaigning now to stop the Government building 2,500

windmills in your back garden to provide you

with enough electricity for the pump in your fish tank,

and I lose this, I can only apologise.

I'm trying to help you out here but I'm losing.

And I'm losing badly.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, we drove across Spain in three budget supercars.

Lamborghini then got in touch and said they'd built one, too.

Better still, they invited me over to Italy to drive it.

So, here we are.

Budget car, Lamborghini-style. The Aventador roadster.

As you'd expect from Lamborghini,

it's basically a ruthless wedge of ginormous numbers.

700 horsepower.

217 miles an hour, 6.5 litre V12.

£289,000. The only small number - 0-60, three seconds.

You get where I'm going!

It also handles beautifully, easily as sharp as the hard-top Aventador.

But I'm not going to spend my time today doing a big technical

assessment of this car's driving dynamics and such,

because what I'm interested in is why this car perfectly sums up

what's so special about Lamborghini.

You see, most sports car companies,

a lot of their appeal comes down to their heritage.

Cars named after famous racetracks, famous races, Mille Miglia, Le Mans,

and the like. But Lamborghini has never bothered with any of that.

Their mission has always been to make the best bedroom-wall poster

subject in the world, always looking forward, never back.

I mean, look at this thing. It's just pure theatre.

Everything is dialled up to 11.

It brings out the nine-year-old inside every 40-year-old. 43.

38. Middle-aged. Young. Early middle-aged man.

What's really astonishing is that they've been pulling off this

trick for 50 years now.

That's five decades of unleashing unique flamboyant machines,

each more outrageous than the last.

The thing is, that's kind of a high-risk strategy because how do

you keep doing extreme year after year after year for 50 years?

What do you come up with next?

Well, let's find out what, shall we, because in truth,

this isn't the car Lambo rang us about.

The car they rang us about makes this look dull.

It's called the Sesto Elemento, Italian for sixth element.

And in the periodic table, that sixth element is carbon, which is

no coincidence, because this thing is made from little else.

The prop shaft, the suspension,

even the wheel rims are all forged from carbon.

And the body is made from a revolutionary blend of plastic

and carbon, jointly developed by Lamborghini and Boeing.

Such an extreme car deserves an extreme location, which is

why we've returned to the fearsome Imola racetrack.

Right, last time I was here, I was in a Noble M600 which,

as we know, is no slouch.

Let's give it a shot. Three... Let's just do it!

Wow!

It's different. That's what it is!

It's superbike fast. God, it nearly wheelies!

The reason it's so fast is not only because it's powered

by a 570 horsepower V10 but also because despite that massive engine

and a full four-wheel-drive system, it weighs less than a Ford Fiesta.

That means 0-60 in 2.5 seconds.

The same as a Veyron.

Holy moly!

Now, there are other supercars that are fast because they're light

but no car is as extreme as this in the pursuit of shedding weight.

The Sesto Elemento doesn't even have paint - instead,

its colour comes from flecks of crystal embedded in the bodywork.

And there's more.

These seats, they're not actually seats, they've just made these

pads in a seat shape and stuck them directly onto the chassis.

And the dashboard - well, there isn't one.

Instead, you just get all this exposed carbon-plastic composite.

But what I love is the way they've done all this brutal simplicity

and weight-saving in an Italian way. It's beautiful.

This central spar looks like it belongs in a modern art gallery.

Yet despite its many unique qualities, the Sesto Elemento

does share one thing with other high-end sports cars -

its ability to empty your bank account.

I think Lamborghini has learned from Porsche the art of charging

more for less.

So this thing, with its missing dashboard and seats,

is - wait for it...

£1.95 million!

However, there's no time to be shocked by that because right now,

I'm in a £2 million hypercar and I've got Imola all to myself.

Waa-ha! Woooow!

Lambo, when it turns in, it changes direction, it turns like a swallow.

Because it's light, you can brake so late and because it's light,

it can turn so hard without trying to tear its own tyres off.

And because it's light, when you get out of a turn...

570 brake power V10 just catapults it.

People talk about being at one with the car.

I've grown a car out of my hands and feet.

Operating the steering is just a joyous experience.

It's the most alive thing I've ever driven. It's beautiful.

Absolutely dazzling.

And when you've finished, you can get out and remind yourself that

you've been driving something that looks like this.

I've said for some time that Pagani have been stealing Lamborghini's crown

when it comes to making the best bedroom-wall poster car but...

I think the new boys have just been slapped down.

It's amazing.

You know, when you say it's light, you can see the windscreen. Look.

-It is.

-That is how light this thing is. That's not even glass.

-It is.

It was electrifying to drive because if you think, most

supercars are broadly the same. This, though, just felt different.

It feels like the future.

D'you know, I took it for a spin this morning, as you know, and what I loved about it,

-because it's just a Gallardo underneath, it's not intimidating.

-No.

It's just fantastically fast without being terrifying.

-It's nimble and sharp. It's absolutely beautiful.

-I loved it.

Anyway, we must now find out how fast it goes around our track

and that, of course, means handing it over to our tame racing driver.

Some say he's married to one of Princess Anne's hats.

And that he's spent all week standing outside

a hospital in London pretending to be Nicholas Witchell.

All we know is he's called the Stig.

And away he goes. No weight, so it takes off like a housefly.

Coming up to the first corner, he's shunting power backwards here

to drive it through, maintaining grip.

That is controlled.

No stereo, so no TV theme tunes, mercifully.

Going to wiggle through Chicago. Listen to that noise.

It is spectacular. Now, will it understeer or oversteer?

No, it won't do either of them. Oh, a bit of a bounce!

Stig is really on it today.

Right, follow-through. All 570 horsepower unleashed here.

A bit of a drift. Steady on, Stig. Oh, wait. And he's gone.

He's gone, he's lost it and he's on the grass. Oh, my giddy aunt!

Ooh, now that is a surprise.

I think that's only the second time he's ever spun off here

but he did eventually complete a lap and I have the time here.

Now this is where the normal Gallardo got, OK?

But because this is a little bit lighter...

It was quick.

-That's a Zonda F.

-Faster than that. Fast...

Is it faster than a Bugatti Veyron?

AUDIENCE GROANS

Yes, it is!

No way! You're not...

AUDIENCE: Oooh!

Wow! That's amazing!

1.14.

That is what happens when you lose weight! So that...

That is where it goes on our board and now it goes on the floor.

Yeah. No, it must, sorry, because you can't drive that on the road.

The board is for road cars only. Those are the rules.

Now, though, it is time to put a star in our reasonably priced car.

Now, my guest tonight is enormously famous these days

because of his massive sideburns

and because you wouldn't want to shake hands with him.

And don't worry, it's not John McCririck.

It is in fact Wolverine.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Hugh Jackman!

-Have a seat.

-Thank you.

-Hands are fine!

-That's a lot of smiling faces today.

-Smiley, sweaty faces. I love it.

I feel like I'm in Australia.

But you know the good thing about this being such a hot summer.

I've been coming here for many years. My parents are English and for...

Since I was 12, when I first came here,

everyone talked about the summer of '76.

And I'm like... What kind of country do you live in when everybody

reminisces about the summer of '76? Finally, that's over.

-Trust me, did you miss the first half of this summer?

-Right.

-That was

-BLEEP.

Hey, listen. We're going to get onto Wolverine in a minute, obviously.

And the new movie. But when you were growing up, from what

I can understand, you actually wanted to be in musicals.

I mean, your recent appearance in Les Miserables was more where

-you wanted to go. Am I right in saying that?

-Yeah, it's weird.

I always did...

The musical side of things was actually more of a surprise for me.

I did a couple of eminent musicals, and I was really bad.

I remember actually doing West Side Story for the Eastern Suburbs Musical Society.

I couldn't sing

any of the top three notes, right, and I was playing Tony

and... # Maria, Maria... #

and it goes really high and every night,

I can't believe I did this, on stage I was...

# Maria, Maria Ma... #

HE MOUTHS

Looking into the wings.

HE MOUTHS

# Ma-ri-a! #

-In a clever way!

-Literally, and all my mates came.

"Oh, that sound department sucked, man. You were awesome and right at the key moment,

"the big notes just cut out."

So obviously, you'd made a name for yourself before Wolverine

came along, but what was it that caused you to say

"Yeah, I want to move into..." effectively you know, the sort of comic book franchise of X-Men?

Yeah, it's interesting.

Like when I got the part of Wolverine, first of all,

I would have taken it no matter what it was.

I had no other job at the time but I didn't realise how good a part it was.

In fact, my wife said, "You can't do this. This is ridiculous."

I mean, I was auditioning, she read the scene with me and said,

"Wolverine senses danger and claws come out of his hands - snikt!"

She goes, "This is ridiculous. You're at the Royal National Theatre

"and now you're going to have claws coming out of your hands,"

and chucked it down. She says, "You're on your own."

The only time she's ever been wrong in 18 years.

And she doesn't watch this show, so I'm all good in saying that.

-So, obviously, new movie out.

-Yeah.

-Tell us about it.

So the movie takes place, for X-Men fans,

it's straight after X-Men 3.

Wolverine is literally at the bottom of his life.

He's almost made a vow not to be Wolverine,

because everywhere he goes, the people he loves die.

It's filled with pain and regret, destruction,

so everything that makes him great also brings his sadness

and loss, so that's where you find him.

He then gets brought to Japan

and this is based on one of the great comic books ever written,

this Japanese saga, or the Samurai story and in he goes,

and of course, has to look inside himself to find the inner

-person and choose what he wants to be.

-Needless to say, we have a clip.

-We'd like to show that now if we may.

-Fantastic.

-Here it is.

My employer wants to thank you for saving his life.

I wanted to repay you, Logan. I can hand you eternity. Make you mortal.

I'm not healing like before.

Is that all the men you brought?

Your grandfather called me a Ronin, a Samurai without a master...

..who has no reason to live.

Was he right?

-Saw it the other night.

-Thank you.

One of the things I noticed in the new film is the hair is a

-lot less extravagant than it has been in the past.

-Yes.

Environmental groups really had a go at us

at the amount of hair spray we were using.

-It must have been the ozone layer, right there.

-Completely.

So we've quit that, we've moved on.

-So, you were filming a lot of that in Japan?

-Yeah.

-Isn't that a great country?

-I love Japan.

I've been there maybe 11 times and I love the customs,

I love the way... Their attention to detail, the food, I mean, the cab drivers wear gloves.

Everything is polite and everything is... But I did make a few faux pas.

-In Japan?

-Yeah.

The worst one was the onsen. Did you go to the onsen?

-You know, the bathhouses that they...

-I know exactly what you mean. Yeah.

No, my penis is too small.

-Right.

-You know what I mean.

-No.

-Yeah, there we go.

-No, so...

So we went into these... For those who haven't been, they're natural springs and they're hot.

They're incredible. It's part of the culture and it's a whole rigmarole.

You have to go and you have to put everything in the locker.

You have to put on a robe, you put on slippers, and then when you go - nothing.

They give you a little towel, almost like a flannel, sort of thing.

And that's it, you walk in. Hot. Hot as hell.

Everyone's walking around. I'm walking around naked.

You're there for about an hour and they have one little cold pool

to cool yourself down because everything is super hot. So I'm dipping it in the cold pool.

And I'm putting it on my head, you know, like to cool myself down.

And I'm sitting there like this and I'm getting the weirdest looks from all the guys.

I thought, this is really weird.

I don't know what's going on and then finally,

one guy who was sitting in the tub like this, goes...

"Heh-heh-heh... heh-heh-heh!"

I was like, "No, mate. Not my thing."

"Heh-heh-heh... heh-heh-heh!"

And I really... Oh, right!

The flannel was for that.

I'd just been waltzing around... Whooo! "How you doing?"

"How you doing, man?"

I was actually avoiding getting onto cars because I'd looked into your history and it's not particularly...

But not as a child, anyway, because you seem to have spent most of your childhood being driven around

-Australia in the back of a Volvo.

-Yeah, I remember my dad getting a Volvo.

Literally, because he's an accountant and he heard it's the safest car

but they had those little dicky seats in the back that would fold up backwards and I basically

spent my entire childhood giving the finger to cars behind me, you know.

And almost throwing up because it was the week-old cooler,

you know, filled with the food, because my dad was really tight so he would pack food for a week

and we'd have it in the back of the car in temperatures like this

and I'd have my feet on it, so I'm smelling like, bad liverwurst,

and things like that.

-Have your kids ever gone through the car sickness phase?

-A little bit.

-My daughter gets it a little bit, yes.

-Cos I'm just thinking,

you know when the car manufacturer quotes the ability of a car to stop

from 100 miles an hour, 100 kilometres an hour, down to zero?

You can always beat it when the child goes, "I'm feeling a bit sick."

Because when a child IS sick in a car, the car has to be written off.

-Yes, immediately.

-There is no chance...! They are.

So obviously, you came here today.

-The temperature is very similar to Australia.

-Right.

-Properly hot.

And there is a bit of a problem with our new reasonably priced car,

-because it is much faster with the air conditioning off.

-Yeah.

-Apparently, you did turn it off.

-Yeah.

-Because I was hoping for any edge, my driving ability is so bad.

-Is it?

My assistant is here, who I've known for 20 years

and he's a mad fan of this show. He's really pissed off with me that I'm here.

He said, "You don't deserve it. I put in the effort.

"I watch every episode. I love this show, and look at you.

"You do a couple of movies, you pretend to be someone else

"and you're driving the car with Stig!"

-Anyway, you went out there, air conditioning off.

-Yep.

-For your hot lap.

-Yep.

-Anyone want to see it?

AUDIENCE: Yeah!

Let's play the tape.

I feel the need for speed! 60, here we go.

This is looking actually like you're on it.

Like you really care about whether you're going to...

-Oh, I say. That's good grip through there. Aggressive turning!

-I literally look...

-Very low in the car.

-It's a low seat.

-Yes!

I didn't think I was going to feel competitive.

My God, am I feeling competitive!

You can see... I can see the way you're driving it,

-this is a man who wants that thing to get... Oh, hoo hoo!

-Yeah.

Come on, Jackman! 6,000. That's good.

All right, this is my Achilles heel, this corner.

It's everybody's Achilles heel.

They mostly go off at the second to last corner. Hey, Hugh.

-This is not bad at all.

-Isn't it?

-No. I'm actually deeply impressed.

There, you see. You're using more of the track then Benedict did last week.

OK. Don't be a pussy. Stay in there. Just stay.

Ah! Can't believe I'm staying on that full accelerator.

Yes, Stig, you'll be proud of me!

It does take guts to do that, keep your foot hard in it

and close to the tyres!

Whoa, close to those tyres!

-Smell the rubber!

-Right, now let's see if you clip this nicely.

Yes, that is very good.

Oh! Nearly off there but held it nicely, Gambon.

That's nicely done as well and across the line. Oh!

So.

-I have your time here.

-Oh, OK.

-Where d'you think you came?

I'm thinking, oh, Charles Dance.

-Either just above or just below Charles.

-Just above or just below.

-But you're in the 1.48s, you think.

-Yeah.

Okie-doke. Well, well, you did it in one...

forty...

-..six...

-Oooh!

-One. So you're now our third fastest.

-Wow!

APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH

Where's Irving? Irving, where are you, Irving? Irving, come out.

-He's going to hate this. He said, "You were crap."

-Your friend said you were crap?

"You're going to embarrass me." Irving, where are you? Come on, mate.

-I'm impressed.

-Yah!

Thank you!

-We're all impressed.

-That's on tape. It's on tape!

Ladies and gentlemen, Hugh Jackman!

Tonight, we are having a race up the side of New Zealand from here

to here.

Yep, it's James in the £700,000 boat versus me

in the fastest car in the world - a £65-a-day rented hatchback.

When we left the action, I was here and Jeremy was here.

So I was winning. But I was very miserable.

More power, hire car!

Come on!

Splash the caravan.

On board HMS Misery, life wasn't getting any better.

This is all I get to eat on the boat.

A melted bar of chocolate

-and a bag of

-BLEEP

-nuts and you'll have to beep that word.

Life in the car, now I was on tarmac roads, was much more comfortable.

Radio.

MUSIC:"Weather With You" by Crowded House

Crowded House. Nice. Local band.

Now, let's just try and other radio station.

SAME SONG PLAYS

Radio three.

After 60 miles of Crowded House, I was finally heading in the right

direction. But I was approaching the often crowded city of Auckland.

According to the tracking device, James is now 100 miles ahead of me.

Dear God, let Auckland be clear.

Mercifully, it was.

I'm doing 120 kilometres an hour on a very smooth road.

I'm coming to get you, James.

Out at sea, conditions were getting even worse.

Hold on, big fellow. You all right?

With a rough sea slowing us down,

I decided to use my sat phone to see where Jeremy was.

PHONE RINGS

Wow!

-Well, that's the end of that.

-What's wrong?

That tore it clean out of my hand. I just couldn't keep hold of it.

Please!

I'm on a mission from God!

Go, go, go.

Right, last chance for the radio.

'Auckland on 90.2.'

MUSIC: "Weather With You" by Crowded House

Despite the conditions,

the sailors were pushing the boat to the ragged age.

BLEEP BLEEP.

Whoa. That's a biggy.

Whoa.

BOAT GROANS

Matty, this is bloody madness, mate.

Yeah, it's not too good.

We've never sailed these things in these conditions before, and...

Now you tell me!

20 knots, if we do go in,

you have to hang on because you're going to be breaking bones...

-Tremendous.

-..you have to hang on.

Thank you.

'In the little blue hatchback,

'the news from the GPS tracking device was encouraging.'

James May is now only 67 miles ahead.

I'm catching him.

But am I catching him fast enough? That's the big question.

'I decided to take a short cut.

'Even though it would mean leaving the tarmac

'and using gravel roads instead.'

This is going to save me 20 miles.

Yes!

'My plan was working well but then the gravel ran out.'

There's no track!

Oh...!

Oh.

BLEEP!

Yeah, I wouldn't do this in my Mercedes, pretty certain of that.

CAR RATTLES

Oh, dear, I've run into the White Cliffs of Dover, literally.

'Still, could be worse.'

WIND HOWLS

JAMES GROANS

-Sir Ben Ainslie, Sir?

-Yes?

Please don't take this personally but this is bloody purgatory.

Can you imagine... Ow!

'Meanwhile, I'd found a track.'

This must take me back to the road.

Oh, my God.

Tractor.

Agh!

-Sir Ben Ainslie, Sir?

-Yes?

What happens if you need a slash on this boat?

I think there's a bucket somewhere.

Right.

I might just piss myself.

JAMES GROANS

What is the point of sailing?

'The track had indeed taken me back to the road

'but the accident with the tractor meant

'I was no longer driving the fastest car in the world.'

UNUSUAL CAR ENGINE SOUND

That noise is not good.

It's not going to make it.

It just is not going to make it.

'So there was only one thing for it.'

-Hi.

-Good afternoon.

-I've got a small problem with my car.

There was a maniacal tractor driving, he was doing,

like, 70 kilometres an hour...

'In a jiffy, the helpful hire car lady had me back in the race.'

Now, in one important respect,

this car is not the same as the one I started out with.

But, at the finish line, I suspect James will be so exhausted,

he won't notice...

..that I set off with a blue car and ended up with a red one.

'And, anyway, right now, I had bigger issues.

'Because I was 100 miles from the finish line

'and James was only 50 miles away.

'To win, then, I'd have to go twice as fast.'

All right, can't get worse, sonny boy.

Stay vigilant, boys. Stay on it.

Anything from Jeremy? Where is he?

No idea.

No comms.

Come on. You've got the fastest car in the world, now use it.

23 knots.

OK, three, two, one, diving.

James, give him a hand.

Come on, man. This ain't the bloody Love Boat!

Come on, Jeremy. Concentrate, concentrate.

Take every corner as crisp as you can, come on!

Just ticked over nine hours.

So sick of this.

'What I really needed was a road with no corners.

'And, thanks to this wonderful country,

'that's exactly what I found.'

Woo-ha!

This is called Ninety Mile Beach because it is exactly

55 miles long.

I don't understand that either.

What I do know, and I do understand,

is that it is genuinely a public highway.

It's a road.

No traffic, no corners.

James May, you have had it.

'In the boat, we were about to go round the very top of New Zealand.'

That is the Cape there.

Once we've rounded that,

we think we'll have weaned in a bit of time with us,

the water will be flat,

then we've got about ten miles of pleasant sailing,

like in Howard's Way.

It can't come soon enough.

JAMES GROANS

Jesus.

Bit wobbly there.

Boys, stay vigilant for this last six or seven miles. Not far to go.

'I was now off Ninety Mile Beach.'

Back on gravel. I wasn't expecting that.

Come on, small, red hatchback.

Whatever you are.

I'm doing this now to uphold the honour of coal, gas and oil.

The cornerstones of civilisation.

-Is that our beach there?

-Yup.

'The finish line was a chequered flag at the water's edge

'but to make my day even more miserable,

'Sir Ben announced that the boat couldn't actually get there.'

-You're going to have to jump off and swim ashore.

-What? You're joking.

There's now only five miles to go.

OK, James.

Don't lose it now. Do not lose it now!

Go for it, James.

Swim!

Come on!

No, no!

Come on, please!

Have I won?

Have I won? Have I won?

Oh, man in heaven!

Oh, God!

THEY CHEER

Holy cow. Have you seen your face?

I was just about to conclude

and say we must now close down all coal and gas powered power stations

and switch immediately to wind power because obviously it's better.

But look what it does to you!

It's brought me out in boils and sores, and blindness.

Did you have to use any of your insurance waiver forms?

No, none at all. No, the car got here without a single scratch.

It was blue when you set off.

-It wasn't.

-Wasn't it? It was blue!

-It wasn't.

-I'd have sworn it was blue, wasn't it?

We're always being told that Britain's manufacturing industry

is dead, that we don't make stuff any more

and we certainly don't make vehicles.

But do we?

Well, we do, obviously.

We made this pioneering hybrid electric car,

using technology that is now copied globally.

And we made the magnificent Hovervan,

a machine of unparalleled capabilities,

many of which were not faked in any way at all.

LAUGHTER

-And then there was the superb P45.

-Which was terrible.

-Well, it had one or two issues.

-Yeah, it was lethal.

Yeah, being lethal was one of the issues, but it was British built.

And we were wondering what else is.

And, so, for the finale of the last programme of the series,

we thought we should find out.

'This is most people's idea of a British car factory.

'A ruin that closed down after some long forgotten strike in the 1970s.

'But it turns out that actually there's rather more

'going on than you might think.

'Today, a new car rolls off a production line

'somewhere in Britain every 20 seconds.

'Honda has a factory in Swindon, where 2,700 people are employed

'to make the Civic, the Jazz, and the CRV.

'Toyota makes cars in Derbyshire,

'cars which are then exported to Japan.

'And then there's the Nissan plant in the north-east.

'Last year, this one factory made more cars

'than the whole of the Italian motor industry put together.'

And it's not just whole cars we make, either.

Last year, one in three Fords sold globally

had an engine made either in Wales or here in Essex.

And there's more.

'And then we arrive at the Rolls-Royce plant in Sussex,

'where, yes, many of the components are shipped over from Germany.'

But the job of putting them all together is done here.

Because Britain is the only country that appreciates

it's better to trim the seats with hide from bulls

because cows get stretchmarks when they're pregnant.

'Then you have the people doing the wood.

'Grandmasters, they're called.

'And the paint shop, where 45 kilos of paint is applied

'to each car.'

And then there's this chap.

It's his job to apply the coach lines

and embellishments to the finished product.

By hand.

You won't find his equivalent in a Hyundai factory.

'He learned his trade as a pub sign writer.'

It's said he has the steadiest hand in the world.

'Then there's motor racing.'

In the whole world, there are 11 Formula One teams.

Eight are based in Britain

and seven can be seen from the top of this one hill in Oxfordshire.

Over there, you have Williams.

Up there in the Cotswolds, there's Lotus and Caterham.

Then, moving further along,

we have Force India, Marussia, Red Bull, and Mercedes.

'Britain's contribution to motorsport is extraordinary.

'All IndyCar races,

'every Dakar winner since 2009,

'35 of the 56 starters at this year's Le Mans,

'including the car that won it,

'the Marussia Formula One car,

'and the Pagani Huayra.'

All of them have gearboxes made in that factory

on this little industrial estate in Berkshire.

'A whopping 75% of all research and development

'done in global motorsport is British.

'British clutch.

'British hybrid system.

'British ECUs.'

And it's not just us saying, "Oh, look, aren't we clever?"

The rest of the world likes what we're doing these days.

For five out of the last seven years,

Aston Martin has been voted coolest brand in the world.

And then there's the list of global celebrities who drive a Range Rover.

Time now to move away from the cars and into the heavy engineering.

'On this map of the world,

'all the countries shaded in red use military vehicles made in Britain.

'All the countries shaded green use British-made lorries

'to move stuff around.

'In all the countries shaded yellow,

'there's at least one JCB helping to build something.

'And, while it's not exactly heavy engineering,

'all the countries shaded brown

'watch British made motoring shows.'

Having established we do make quite a lot of stuff in Britain,

we decided to find out just how much.

So, we hatched an ambitious plan.

We called all the companies that make motorised vehicles

and said to them, "Could you bring

"whatever it is you make to a gathering in London?

Hit a bit of a problem with Morgan, who didn't know what London was.

But, eventually, everybody responded magnificently.

ENGINE REVS

HIGH REVVING ENGINE

Jeremy, Richard and I are taking three different

versions of the new F-type to London. I, for example, have the V6.

Whoa. That's the Triumph bikes.

Tremendous.

'Meanwhile, deep in the countryside...'

Oh, look at that.

And now look what's coming.

It's the Morgans.

Carry on, chaps.

'Much later than everyone else,

'the Formula One cars began to leave for London.'

ENGINE REVS LOUDLY

'Which, in Milton Keynes, was quite a sight.

'And quite a sound.'

ENGINE REVS LOUDLY

'Eventually, the fleet of vehicles that had been made in Britain

'began to arrive on the streets of the capital.

'And, after the slowest had turned up...

'..we climbed into our jags

'and headed for the meeting point to see how much stuff was there.'

This feels a bit special, this does.

'And it became even more special as we swung past Buckingham Palace.

'And on to the Mall.'

HE GASPS

There's more than I thought.

MUSIC: "Variations On An Original Theme, op. 36: X 'Nimrod'" by Edward Elgar

'The Mall has hosted many uplifting scenes over the years.

'But it has never hosted anything quite like this before.

'It wasn't just the sheer volume that took our breath away.

'It was the diversity, the breadth.

'Cars, lorries, diggers, racers, ice cream vans, hearses.

'It was magnificent.

'It was huge!'

I didn't know we made those massive tipper trucks. Look at that thing.

Tractor. Didn't think of that.

Land speed record cars!

There's my bus!

All right, mate?

Ooh! The Eagle!

DOORS SHUT

A lot of people say that today,

Britain is nothing more than a bank or a boutique or a busted flush.

But looking at that staggering collection back there...

..I'm not sure they're right.

'Good night.'

MUSIC: "Pomp And Circumstance, March No. 4" by Edward Elgar