Episode 3 Top Gear

Tonight: A fat man gets murdered, a donkey gets overtaken,

and James wears ladies' underwear on his head.

Hello. Hello, good evening.

Welcome. Welcome, everybody.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Now, we begin with a letter.

It says, "Dear Top Gear, I'm a leading light in the Albanian Mafia

"and I'm thinking of buying the new baby Rolls-Royce, the Ghost.

"But how does it compare to, say, a Bentley or a Mercedes?

"Yours sincerely, Normanski Ataesi." Now this caused one hell of a row in the office.

The producers said we should go out to Albania and do the test.

We said, "No, we can't be seen to be helping the Mafia." We were adamant.

We said, "This is our line in the sand, we will not go!"

You join me on the ferry from Corfu to Albania and here is the car in question,

the new Rolls-Royce Ghost -

£200,000 of power, prestige and...peeled cows.

And this Mercedes is the alternative -

the twin turbo-charged V12 S65.

In short, the most powerful saloon car in the world.

And this is where the Bentley Mulsanne should be,

but just a few days before we were due to come out here,

Bentley decided not to take part in the film.

So no Bentley?

-No.

-So you're going to tell a leading light of the Albanian Mafia

you couldn't bring them their car because it was a bit difficult.

No, I've made an alternative arrangement.

And when we arrived the alternative arrangement was waiting for us.

-It's a Yugo.

-Yes.

But in a number of critical ways, it is exactly the same as the new Bentley Mulsanne. Listen to this.

DULL THUMP There you go.

That's the same sort of dull aristocratic whump.

-Four door.

-There's a hole on the outside you put the fuel in.

-Yeah, engine at the front, rear drive, probably.

-Drive it from there.

-From that wheel there.

It is - for this mission, it's exactly the same as the Bentley Mulsanne,

-in the same way that Roy Hattersley is the same as a tub of lard.

-Yes.

This is the perfect car for the job.

-Can't say that.

-What?

-You can't say that word, the C-word.

-I didn't, did I?

-Not that C-word, the other C-word.

-Car?

-Yes.

-Car?

-You can't say that, car here means gentleman's sausage.

-Really? What?

-That's why they all watch Top Gear in Albania.

-IN BAD ALBANIAN ACCENT:

-Funnier even than Norman Wisdom, you make show about...

-So when I say, "My car's enormous..."

-That's the funniest thing in the world they've ever heard.

They tune in every week.

-We do a car show.

-Yes, but you can't say car or peach.

-Peach?

-Don't say peach?

-What does that mean?

-Lady garden. So this car's a peach is really bad.

With the ground rules established, we headed inland into the rain to begin the road test.

Let's get one thing absolutely clear from the start - the Ghost is not a bespoke Rolls-Royce,

not like the Phantom, the bigger one.

This one underneath is a BMW 7 Series.

However, everything you see, everything you touch, everything you feel, it's all Rolls-Royce.

It's chuffing marvellous, this ca...motor.

At £160,000, the S Class is £40,000 less than the Ghost.

But it's not like they have skimped.

I've never driven anything where you get such a sense of there being a lot of things going on

in the background, to keep you safe, to keep you on the road.

Everywhere I look there's a little light comes on to let you know -

one there to tell me it's a 30 kilometre an hour speed limit around here.

It just knows that and I have never experienced a car this big and so powerful.

I can't believe I said car this big.

In the Mulsanne, however... I must say I'm terribly disappointed by the Bentley.

It is the most expensive...

Oh, God, strewth! I'm going off. No, I managed to... Jesus wept!

It is the most expensive penis of the three,

£220,000, and from where I am sitting, it is hard to see why.

Oh, crunch. What the hell were Bentley thinking of?

Even by Albanian standards, it was absolute rubbish.

Until 1991, Albania was probably the most extreme Marxist state in the world.

One man, who owned a cafe, got 18 years in jail for telling a customer he didn't have a spoon.

Another guy pointed at Corfu over there and said,

"Why have they got a light in their harbour and we haven't?" He got 25 years.

And soon we were reminded of the dark days because the road just sort of stopped.

And to make things worse, instead of white lines, they'd used rocks.

Let's not view this as a bad thing, it is at least a chance to test the car's ride.

As far as I'm concerned, the road merely changes colour occasionally.

I am quite surprised because this is an AMG-tuned Merc, which you would expect to be a very firm thing.

It's coping with this very well. However, in the Bentley...

This has to be the least refined car I've ever driven.

This is simply intolerable.

£220,000 for this. Oh, God, it's...

Yeah, you got hooked up on a cat's eye, mate.

-Let's - can we - if one pushes and two lift the wheel arches...

-We just lift it off.

-Heave!

The bumper is in deep trouble here.

-Yes.

-Just drive it back, hang on.

-That is wedged.

-That's sad to see a Bentley treated in such a...

Nice(!) It's off.

Tough thing!

Fortunately, the rough road soon ended. Unfortunately, it ended at an Albanian river crossing.

-That's not the ferry, is it?

-Yes.

That's a raft, rather than a ferry, isn't it?

Still, it wasn't like the cars we'd be loading were valuable, or heavy.

It's not even fastened together. It's driftwood.

Have seen the captain's chair?

That's the most incredible thing I've seen - it's got five legs, it's got five legs.

Despite the peril, James volunteered to go first.

Ha-ha-ha!

-No, no.

-You're all right now.

Oh, my God. What worries me is the Bentley is 2.8 tonnes, it's the heaviest by far.

Wow. I guess because it's in the middle, it didn't have the same effect.

We're off.

We are now leaving the shore on an old piece of flotsam with over half a million quids worth of cars.

This is the best ferry I've ever been on.

-It is the worst I've ever been on.

-This is the worst thing I've ever been on.

-It's absolutely terrible.

Eventually, HMS Driftwood deposited us gracefully on the other side.

Oh, no. And as we drove on, we realised that one

benefit of the Mercedes, if you're a Mafia boss, is that you do blend in.

Mercedes. Mercedes. Mercedes.

Mercedes. Mercedes.

Mercedes. Mercedes. Mercedes.

Look at them all.

Mercedes. Mercedes. Mercedes.

Mercedes. Mercedes. Mercedes.

It turns out that a staggering 80% of all cars registered in Albania are old Mercs.

But that said, English cars are popular too -

a point we discussed when we pulled over for afternoon tea.

Apparently, what happens is, Albanians go to England,

get a job, buy a car, and then bring it back with them here.

-Right.

-It is quite traditional when you bring a car back like that that you drive it

around with the door locks pulled out and sometimes little marks along the back of the door, the trailing edge.

-They have a tradition here of filing off any numbers they find under the bonnet.

-That's to save weight.

-Oh, is it?

-Yes, that's why they do it, all the VIN numbers, identifying plates, that makes the car lighter.

-Oh I see.

-Weight-saving measures are important.

Some of them, though, are stolen.

-No!

-Give up!

-I'm afraid they are.

-After tea, the sun came out, so we hit the coast road and went for a nice cruise.

Well, it was nice for me.

God! The power of this thing and the acceleration it makes possible is mind-blowing.

It's weird, actually, because it's so quiet.

There's always noise when you go fast and yet, in this, there really isn't.

The beans, oh! It doesn't encourage you to be sporty, or aggressive.

It's just so nice.

It's nice in the Rolls-Royce.

But then my nice time was ruined by news from the Bentley.

Oh, no, the Mulsanne is overheating.

We stopped to let the twin turbo V8 cool, but then...it decided to die.

ENGINE WON'T TICK OVER

No. So I tried a reverse bump start.

-He's done that wrong.

-The brakes!

No.

The door mirror's come off!

It's suddenly dawned upon me that he isn't very bright.

I think he could be a massive idiot.

The door mirror!

-How long will he go before...?

-Well...

Oh, no.

Just get it away from the wall.

It's the steepest hill in Albania you've broken down on.

While we examined the engine, the orang-utan tried to mend the door.

Then an Albanian mechanic arrived and Jeremy filled him in.

Running, then stop.

That describes most breakdowns.

Running and then stop, you idiot!

Don't say to that man, "My car needs a jump."

LAUGHTER

Yes. Yes.

The Bentley is running well.

It had been a long and tiring day on the road, but for Hammond, that was OK.

This S Class has a new system on board.

It just monitors the driver to make sure he or she isn't getting sleepy,

or wandering out of the lane, or nodding off, and it's monitoring 70 different parameters about me.

That must include whether or not I like different types of cheese, or if I'm thinking about hats.

I was on life-support in an intensive care unit and they weren't monitoring 70 things about me.

Soon, we arrived at a disused submarine base.

And Jeremy insisted we should stop.

I am a mountain goat. Oh!

-LAUGHTER

-That was close.

-Yes.

-I love the idea of sneaky warfare.

If there were to be a war tomorrow, and I had to volunteer for some service, definitely subs.

Which is ironic - can you imagine a place where you'd be less welcome.

I wonder if they're for sale.

What are you going to do with a submarine, Jeremy?

Well, drive about in it.

With the sun going down, I was dragged away from the sub pen

so we could get back to our Mafia road test.

We've had a discussion, and we reckon that when someone from the Albanian Mafia

is choosing a new car, uppermost in his mind will be this: "Can I get a dead body in the boot?"

-Makes sense.

-That is why the car has a boot.

-Stands to reason.

-Unfortunately, to find out which of the cars is best, we've had to murder a passer-by.

Yeah. And here he is.

As you can see, he's quite a big chap, so he took a lot of murdering.

And now James is going to see

if he can get him in the boot of the Rolls-Royce.

-Am I?

-Yes.

-You go first, yes.

-OK.

That's a good start. Look at that.

-What?

-He was a member of a gym.

-He was not!

-Could we have murdered someone a bit smaller?

-Not really.

-He was the only one we could catch.

-Anyone smaller would have been faster.

Come on, James, the police could be on their way.

I can't lift him up. Three, two, one and up.

No, it's not working.

OK. This was hopeless. So rather embarrassingly, we had to ask the man we murdered to give us a hand.

It's not so much the head, but everything else.

All we have to do now is saw his leg. Wait a minute.

Just get that in there.

-Bend that back round there.

-Yes!

-Yes!

-Yes. Excellent.

The great thing about the Rolls-Royce is, it has self-levelling rear suspension,

so when the boot is shut you won't know from the way it's riding that there is a body in there.

Except the boot won't go down.

Right, you get him out and put him in the back of the Benz.

Get him out?

'Sadly, there's a fridge in the boot of the Merc,

'which takes up a lot of room.' Is that it? Can you move that knee?

No chance!

That meant our dead body wouldn't fit.

Nobody wants to see that.

And even though he did fit in the Bentley, there was still a problem.

Mate, you can see him. Look.

-That is a drawback.

-Clearly.

You might as well just put him in the passenger seat.

APPLAUSE

James, Richard, bad news.

-What?

-Do you see the girl with the red beret on?

-Yeah.

-She's from Albania.

-Hello!

And can we just ask, is it right that the word "car" means...

Yes.

LAUGHTER

And "peach"?

-INAUDIBLE

-Yes.

-I thought you'd made it up.

-No, we didn't make it up.

-She's actually from Albania.

-Fair enough.

I have got some more information on this, er...

You know in the film I said that some of the cars might be stolen?

-I know, you did, that was shocking!

-Yes, it was.

Anyway, I've got some information here on it.

Albania's public order minister was on his way to Greece to sign an agreement with his opposite number

on cross-border crime, and as a formality the Greek police did a check on his car and it was nicked.

And just so I balance this out,

neighbouring Macedonia, the interior minister was very embarrassed

when police noticed her car was actually registered to David Beckham.

That happens to footballers a lot.

Two AC Milan players had their Range Rovers nicked. D'you know where they turned up?

-Bournemouth?

-No, it was Albania.

-Was it really?

-It was.

-I have to say - and not just because you're here -

genuinely, Albania is a fascinating, brilliant country, very pretty too.

-Beautiful.

-Anyway, it's now time to do the news. We begin with this.

Honda, which is a Japanese car company,

they've developed a hat that knows what your hair is thinking

and then translates those thoughts in such a way that it can drive the car.

-Have you gone completely mad?

-No, seriously, I absolutely haven't.

-They say that hair transmits neurological information.

-Yeah.

The hat picks that up, translates it, so if you think, "I'd like to turn the wipers on,"

your hat knows that and the wipers go on.

-Cos your hair tells you.

-Your hair?

LAUGHTER

Your hair cannot drive a car.

-Your hair isn't very good at being hair!

-In fairness, really.

What if you'd had a hair transplant?

Gordon Ramsay!

-Yeah, exactly.

-Gordon Ramsay, no, wait, wait, wait! Think about it,

if he's stopped for speeding, he can go, "It wasn't me, I bought my hair from a man in Los Angeles."

Are we heading for a future where a policeman stops you and says,

-"Do you know how fast your hair was going, sir?"

-It's out of my hands.

-Does it have to be your hair... on your head...

-Enough!

-If I buy some pants?

What, Honda pants?

But imagine, 17-year-olds think down there a lot, don't they?

Imagine a 17-year-old boy driving with his pubes.

-A million miles an hour! It'd be terrifying.

-Listen...

Ferrari - let's get it back to cars.

Ferrari has made a new car. It's their first-ever 4-wheel drive car,

their first-ever hatchback.

There's a picture here, it's called the FF.

It's got a V12 direct-injection engine, 6.2 litre,

208 miles an hour, it's going to cost £250,000, which is a lot,

but I think that's fantastic. It's a return to what I call

the shooting brake, the two-plus-two estate.

We haven't seen one of those since the Lancia HPE.

Ooh, yes. And do you remember the Volvo P1800ES?

-That wasn't very brilliant, though.

-No, it was terrible, but it looked good.

-It looked brilliant.

-And the Reliant Scimitar, which you can see...

-Ah-hum! You've forgotten the rules!

The law of the land states, if you say "Reliant Scimitar" you have to have a comma and then say...

Princess Anne has one of those, you know?

But you say it in such a way that you assume no-one else knows.

It's extraordinary, I can't think of another person who is so associated with a car.

Nobody ever says, "Henry Kissinger had an Escort RS2000." He didn't, though, did he, let's be honest.

She is commonly thought of as being the hardest working Royal.

She does a lot of work for a lot of people,

raises millions of pounds all over the world.

Yet she's still just known for having a Reliant Scimitar. It must be annoying.

If you think about it - her daughter is getting married later this year.h

You just know the commentary. They'll wheel out a Dimbleby and the commentary will be,

"There's the bride's mother looking radiant - she has a Reliant Scimitar, you know."

-It will.

-I've never driven a Reliant Scimitar, you know?

-I know someone who's got one.

-Do you?

-Yeah, Princess Anne.

-Oh, right.

Right, that is the end of the news.

Now, what we have here is a Ford Sierra Cosworth and a Ford Escort Cosworth.

I like these cars very much, which is why I am delighted to say

that after a 15-year gap, the Cosworth name is back.

But not where you might be expecting it.

Here it is, on the back of a Subaru.

And in theory, that's a marriage

made in heaven.

You see, what Cosworth is really good at is taking ordinary, boring family saloons

and turning them into street-fighting,

come-on-if-you-think-you're hard-enough road racers

with fiery nostrils and a Geordie Saturday night attitude to peace and love.

But what they've done here is take a dreary Impreza SDI

and throw most of it away.

The 2.5 litre flat-four engine is fitted with new pistons, bearings,

conrods, gaskets and head nuts,

along with a totally reworked oil pump, turbo charger,

intercooler, intake system and exhaust.

There have been similar modifications elsewhere - new wheels, tyres,

springs, dampers, bushings and brakes.

It's not really a Subaru any more, is it?

HE LAUGHS

So, is it any good?

In a word, quite.

Certainly, it does capture some of the magic we used to get from old Subaru Imprezas.

Whoo-hoo-hoo!

Even when you think all is lost -

sliding - oh, no, you just give it a dab of power, like that,

and even in rain like this, it isn't lost any more.

Other nice things?

Well, it rides beautifully for such a limpet mine, and it is quick.

0-60 takes 3.5 seconds.

But there's a huge amount of turbo lag.

I'm now in fifth gear, 60mph, foot down...

..nothing.

Still nothing.

Hang on a minute, hang on...

No, I was mistaken, sorry, still nothing.

There is another issue, too.

Cosworths are supposed to be rough-and-ready cars for people who work with ladders.

They're supposed to be a cheap-and-cheerful way

of embarrassing the Ruperts and the Joneses in their Ferraris,

but this is as near as makes no difference £50,000,

and with all that turbo lag, all you're going to embarrass really is...yourself.

Still nothing.

Still nothing.

So, if the Subaru's no good, what else is there?

Well, there's this.

It's the Ford Focus RS500, and let's not mess about...

it's brilliant.

Ha-ha!

It has a 2.5 litre turbo-charged engine, just like the Subaru,

not quite as powerful, but you still get 345 brake horsepower...

..all of which is sent to the front wheels.

That sounds like the recipe for a massive accident.

-TYRES SQUEAL

-But it isn't.

This is really very, very good.

Of course, you do get a fair bit of torque steer.

Watch the steering wheel when I put my foot down. Hands off, here we go,

and...yeah, we've turned right.

And right again. Every time the turbo cuts in, you turn right.

But, thanks to a clever front differential, the grip is incredible.

It's also extremely fast.

The top speed, they say, is 165mph.

165 - that means this Ford Focus

is 10mph faster than a BMW M5.

Since that is now 150...

155...

yeah, I'll believe them.

This is a really well-sorted car.

Well-equipped too, with voice activated keyless Bluetooth.

And to top it off, it's £35,000,

nearly £15,000 less than the Subaru.

So if you're after a family hatchback

that's vaguely yobbish and very fast, this is your obvious choice.

Or is it?

This is a Volvo.

But, before you leap to conclusions...

..watch this.

I'm in the Volvo!

-Go!

-It's a good start.

And look at this!

The Hush Puppy is beating the Reeboks.

Oh, yes! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!

Yes!

The pensioner is victorious.

So, what is it, then, this deafening, electric-blue streak from the frozen North?

Well, it uses exactly the same turbo-charged 2.5 litre engine

that Ford use in the hot Focus, but in this it's all turned up to 27...

or 86 or 109 because it produces,

as near as makes no difference,

400 horsepower.

Small wonder they called it the PCP

cos it really is like driving around in a cloud of angel dust.

Brrrrrrrr!

ENGINE ROARS

Listen to that!

ENGINE ROARS

Of course, you probably think it will all fall to pieces

when it sees a corner. But, no.

It has, I'm delighted to say on a day like today, four-wheel-drive,

so the grip is just phenomenal and you can reach amazing angles

and still rescue it.

It was built for fun by the team that makes the Volvos

for the Swedish Touring Car Championship

and it is genuinely remarkable.

Really sharp, really hard, really raw,

and it just goes like the clappers.

To top it all off, the PCP is based on a normal Volvo C30,

which we on Top Gear think is the best-looking

of all the small hatchbacks.

Inside, the steering wheel, the gear lever, the doors,

the seats, everything, is covered in what appears to be mole skin.

And that does make you wonder how big was the mole

they peeled to make this piece?

This car is epic, but there is one quite large problem with it.

Volvo refuses point blank to put it into production.

Pity.

APPLAUSE

-Wow. It's a shame. That Volvo does just sound incredible.

-Amazing.

But because they're not actually making it, you would have the Focus?

The problem is, they only made 500 of these and they're sold out.

Right. So if you want a very hot hatch, it's got to be

the not so good Subaru?

They only made 75 of those and they are sold out, as well.

Hang on, you have just spent nine minutes of our lives

reviewing two cars you can't buy and one that doesn't exist?

-Yes, I have.

-Thank you.

Yes, I have. Now, we must find out how fast they go round our track.

Not the Volvo, because this board is for production cars only,

so, the other two.

That, of course, means handing them to our tame racing driver.

Some say he once tore a goat in half

and that he's now regretting buying his new holiday home

in downtown Cairo.

LAUGHTER

All we know is, he's called the Stig.

And they're off. The track is damp and that should mean

the four-wheel-drive Subaru has the advantage over

the front-wheel-drive Ford.

Let's see in the first corner.

Coming in wide and... let's have a look.

Oh, it's the Imprezza, getting out of shape.

# Going loco down in Acapulco... #

Absolutely no idea why he is listening to that.

Now, the Ford coming out there, looking OK, good.

That trick dif pulling it straight in the Hammerhead.

Let's watch out for understeer from either of them...

No, all pretty tidy.

So, here we are, two turbo-charged slingshots on to the straight.

Into Follow-through...

Ooh, Stig drifting the Subaru like a mad one!

Imprezzas normally look like a gum disease.

This one is a gum disease with a spoiler on it.

And with those blacked windows, the Ford looks like a van.

Just Gambon left.

Two hatchback drabs coming through there.

And across the line!

APPLAUSE

I have the times here. And the Focus did it

in 1.30.8. So, wet track, in between two 911s.

The Subaru, though, I think, thanks to four-wheel-drive, did it in

1.27.7, so that goes there, look.

That's some useful consumer advice, if you are thinking of buying

-any of them, which you aren't, because you can't.

-Thanks(!)

Let's move on now. It's time, in fact, to put a star

in our reasonably-priced car.

My guest tonight is a prodigious tweeter.

He tweeted only this morning to say he was going to appear

on the show dressed as a Mexican.

LAUGHTER

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome, Jonathan Ross!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Hello, Jeremy.

-Very well. How are you?

-I'm good.

-Have a seat.

What?

I brought my Mexican wrestling mask along,

so you can apologise in person.

Put it away.

There's just no possibility of us mentioning Mexico this week.

We mentioned it maybe twice, I think we have got away with it. You are back on the BBC?

I'm back, who thought that would happen? Not me. I had 20 quid on it.

Are you a bit nervous?

No. Why, should I be?

No, back on the Beeb.

I thought you were going to come out to me.

At least you have chosen to come back on a show

-that never gets into trouble.

-Exactly.

-And I'm a safe booking for you.

-Exactly.

Listen....do you have Tourette's or do you know what you're doing?

BLEEP BLEEP, you BLEEP!

LAUGHTER

Oh no, I don't. Did that come out?

Yeah, you said it out loud.

For me, that was just in there.

No, I don't have Tourette's, Mr Clarkson, but I do sometimes

maybe go a little bit further than other people.

I always thought that was part of what I should do.

You are paid to do certain things and feel you should push things in a certain way and put it out.

You had David Cameron on the show and asked him if - what's the word

I can use? - pleasured himself while thinking about Mrs Thatcher?

-Yes.

-You did say that?

And then there was Gwyneth Paltrow.

You said you would like to make a bouncy-bouncy!

Look, when you were driven round by Cameron Diaz,

-what were you thinking?

-Oh.

Yes.

LAUGHTER

-We know what you were thinking.

-Many bad things.

-You didn't say it out loud, but I was...

The show I had on the BBC, certainly part of the fun of it and part of what we were doing

was doing something very much of the moment and that was the joke.

I would stand by that, even though that was one of the complaints upheld,

-not made by Cameron, by the way. who I would still love to...

-Cameron? David Cameron?

-Cameron Diaz.

-Oh, Cameron Diaz!

I thought you were coming out to David Cameron - a terrifying prospect.

I'd rather come out to Nick Clegg. He looks so much easier to dominate!

We are living in strange times. We must be careful that we don't

trip up over anybody, which means...

We can't talk about anything.

Well, your beard...

-Lovely.

-We might upset beards and beardmen.

-Why have you grown a beard?

-Why have I grown a beard?

-Mmm.

It's easier than getting up and shaving, for a start,

because you only do this - zzz, zzz, zzz. I did take a really big chunk

out the bottom the other day,

because I've got one where you set it and it takes a bit,

but I had it on the wrong one, my wife was talking, I went, "Yes, darling." and I had

a reverse Mohawk, with a big stripe up there.

The opposite of a Brazilian?

Yes, I do use the same one down there, to trim up the old fella,

because otherwise you get to our age and you can't see anything there.

I should explain, we are - we don't look it - but we are the same age.

Man, what happened to you?!

LAUGHTER

-Well, I'm now...

-You were going there, I had to get in first!

-I now walk up stairs.

-Do you?

-Yeah. Have you never walked up?

What did you used to do - crawl on your belly like a snake?

No, do you not do exercise?

I do. I'm quite strong at the moment, but a bit flabby.

Can you do those things where you lie on the floor, you basically do

-a press up and then just hold it there?

-A plank, yes.

-You cannot.

What's wrong with you? You made out of jelly ?

-Get your clock out.

-Get your BLEEP out?! I'm going.

-At least my hearing's still working!

-What's wrong with you?!

Get down on the floor. I bet you I can do one for longer. Go!

LAUGHTER

-I can be here for hours.

-I can be here for hours. Are you in a rush?

-My arms are starting to wobble quite badly now.

-They're not.

-They are.

That was just bullying!

APPLAUSE

-Otherwise, we would have been there for hours.

-I can do that, literally, all day.

-That is not an exercise.

-It is an exercise.

That is not an exercise. All you have done is freeze

your joints in place, that's not an exercise.

-Give me a minute.

-It is hard, isn't it?

-I'm sweating quite badly.

You grow this. Now we have passed 50, this has just appeared.

I have no clue what you're saying. I want to talk about cars. People buy cars for different reasons.

I buy them because they're loud, James May buys them because they're brown.

Looking at yours, you buy them because they're stupid.

Well, you might think stupid, but one man's stupid is another man's cute and fun.

-Pink Ford Thunderbird?

-I've got the Thunderbird.

It is quite stupid.

No, it's pretty. I don't like driving around seeing all cars look the same.

I like Hammond, what's happened to him recently? He's got very...

-In what way?

-He looks like - imagine if you asked a girlie girl

to decorate a scarecrow, that's him.

LAUGHTER

-Somebody's bought him an Adam and the Ants video.

-He's wearing a necklace.

# Stand and deliver. #

Does he think he's on his gap-year?

LAUGHTER

At least May, you know he's going to be dull before you see him.

MAY: I don't much like Jonathan Ross, he's much too flamboyant.

He didn't like me at all.

Stop changing the subject. Pink Thunderbird?

It's coral pink and I love convertibles.

If it's not raining, even if it's Arctic, I will have... in the snow, I had my roof down.

Just tell me, when you are driving along then and people can see it is you and everything...

BEEP, BEEP

-Are people appreciative or do they say other things?

-They love it. "Hey, Wossy", all the time.

The other ones - a Messerschmitt and a bubble car.

-Is that two...

-The Messerschmitt has got the seat behind each other.

It's like a two-stroke engine, but it's really weird, because if you want to go in reverse,

you press the key and when you do the ignition, the solenoid drops to the back.

-So you can get in fourth gear in reverse.

-You can.

You can go to something like 50mph in reverse in something which is like a lunchbox.

LAUGHTER

You've got kids, family and all that. There's nothing in that list where you say,

"Come on, kids, I'll take you in..."

The one we use for the family is the car we have had the longest,

which is, we've got a Toyota Previa, bought second hand 12 years ago,

and we've had any number of scrapes in it. The dogs have been sick,

people have dropped drinks everywhere.

I think my wife did a wee once on a long journey. We've all done it!

I was saying to her the other day, "You know what is a brilliant idea,

"we should get together and get some business, go and see the Dragons." If you had a car seat,

on a long journey, pull out a little thing and it's a potty.

Then when you go along, press a button, a little panel opens up underneath the car like on a plane,

drops the poo and the wee out on the motorway.

Or outside someone's house you don't like.

I think we've managed to get through the interview part of the interview without too much of a problem.

Thank Allah for that!

LAUGHTER

That's fine. That's all right. That's positive.

That's all encompassing, that is multi-cultural.

If you do have a problem, write to us, at Jonathan Ross, ITV.

-So we get on now, of course, to your lap.

-Yes.

The last time you were here, you got lost.

No, I didn't get lost.

Well...you stopped at the Hammerhead and went like this...

Because I couldn't... All right, because there was no-one there to give directions and the

track had disappeared under a large, let's call it a lake, shall we?

It was a very rainy day, and I went, apparently, over the line.

Because you are clearly threatened by me, the Alpha male, you took time off me for that reason.

You've got that arthritis in your finger.

No, this is a tragic story from my youth. I chopped the top of my finger off when I was two,

because my mum had gone out to borrow food from the neighbours -

this sounds so bleak and poverty-ridden - I apparently crawled to the bin

and got a can of beans out and then sliced my finger off on the top.

-And you see the stitch marks, if you look closely.

-Look at that.

I did mine skiing in St Moritz!

LAUGHTER

Anyway, who would like to see Jonathan's lap?

ALL: Yes!

Let's have a look.

Right. Ooh, I say we're determined.

-Is that a good start?

-Ish.

I think Clarkson arranges bad weather for me.

Here we go into the first corner, still going round it...

Is that good, I can't tell?

Well, not very fast, but sometimes...

# I'm turning in nice and I'm braking now, baby. #

..sometimes when a car looks slow, it is actually quite fast.

Boom. Third. Up.

-Here we go.

-You have slowed that footage down.

This is very slow through here.

That's a good corner, that's good cornering.

That's where you got lost last time. You've done well - got out of it.

-I was trying to go to third and I went into fifth.

-Showboating.

I was in BLEEP fourth.

I put it in the wrong gear.

-Fourth sounds about right, fifth, there.

-Pretty good.

This is better. And missed the BLEEP tyres.

Whoa!

The reason you look so slow is because you are quite slow.

Where are you going now?!

He told me to do that. Stig told me to do that.

He wouldn't tell you to go off on the grass. You are lost again.

I didn't want to miss the opportunity to see the greenery.

-There we go, across the line.

-Was that my best one?

It's a combination of various shots to illustrate your driving style.

It's harder than it looks. It is harder than it looks.

-It isn't easy.

-What did I do last time?

I bet I've beaten my last time.

-I was low last time.

-You were really low last time. Let's do it.

Last time you were here, you did it in one minute 57 seconds, which would have put you about here.

-That was a lot slower, that car. This is a faster car.

-Yeah.

1.57. This time you did it...

..one minute...

-..49 dead.

-Yes!

-That is a big improvement.

-I'm up there with Jeff Goldblum.

-Yes! Thank you!

-And you were in the wet.

-That's good. I'm pleased with that.

-Congratulations.

-Pretty good.

You have improved massively.

You're still quite slow.

-I did better, though.

-You did, but the thing is,

we also have another little bit of footage to demonstrate that you're not really a car man.

-Well, listen, no. I know how to drive.

-I don't think you do.

Nor does it, it seems, do you know how to get out of a car.

-It was too impossible to get out of.

-Would you like to see Jonathan trying to get out of a car?

I wondered why they made me pull over there to climb out.

Here we go - Jonathan getting out of the car.

BLEEP. I broke it. I broke something.

Ha-ha-ha!

He's out!

-Yes!

-CHEERING

That was hard. That was...

You need to take part in Le Mans where quick driver changes are important. Say no.

-It's hard to get out of a car like that and you've put things in the way!

-Say no

to any race involving a driver change or indeed any race.

I'll come back and try and slowly crawl up that pole of yours.

-Oh, come on! This show won't be running that long.

-LAUGHTER

-It's been fantastic having you back.

-It's lovely being back.

-Ladies and gentlemen, Jonathan Ross.

-Thank you.

Great fun. Thank you very much. You've been very kind.

Thank you.

Right, back to the main story.

We've had a letter from a leading light in the Albanian Mafia asking us to find out which is best -

a Rolls, a Merc or a Yugo which, for complicated reasons, Jeremy is using as a Bentley.

Yeah. And he would not stop moaning about it.

-You wouldn't stop moaning about our interest in history.

-Yeah.

Good point there. Word to the wise, never go on a trip with two OLD men

-who keep getting teary-eyed about the Cold War.

-Never go on a trip

anywhere with someone who believes the whole world should be like Birmingham.

It's market day obviously - that's nice.

Taking a wheelbarrow, shovel handles and lettuce.

These little tiny patches of land

each with the little tiny house on it, and people farming it, is that to do with Communism?

He is the stupidest man in the world.

I assume it is.

Ooh, I've seen control towers over there.

I want to go and play on a Cold War airfield.

Oh no.

'The airfield was abandoned, so assuming straight line speed would be important to a Mafia boss

'we lined the cars up on the runway for a drag race.'

This is pure Mercedes territory we're in now.

The S Class might have the smallest engine of the three, a mere six litres,

but that twin turbo-charged V12 belts out 604 brake horsepower

and 737 torques.

On paper, Hammond is right, the Mercedes ought to monster it.

But the Rolls-Royce does have 563bhp AND it has eight gears

where the Mercedes has only five so this will stay on the power better.

Anybody's race, this.

Well, not ANYONE'S.

ENGINES REV

ENGINE FAILS TO TICK OVER

Can I have a push?

This is not customary, is it?

I want to get it going and then we'll have the race.

Yeah. Go! Come on, put your back into it.

ENGINE STARTS Right...

What?! He's gone!

Ha-ha-ha-ha!

They weren't expecting me to do that.

What kind of drag race is that?!

Now, come on, Bentley, come on.

We have the advantage.

Give me a gear. Right.

Three, two, one.

TYRES SQUEAL

Woah!

-God that Mercedes is quick. Look at that!

-This thing is unbelievably fast!

100kph.

Bentley now up to 130...

Oh! Holy moly!

240 kilometres an hour!

153, 4, 5, 6, 7...

260 kilometres an hour!

That is actually quite a big adrenaline hit. Oh...

Quite interesting, the runway here is...has got crazy paving, and some of the slabs are mined

so they can be detonated should Albania be invaded by a country that wants its, um,

watermelons. We're doing 70 now.

'With the drag race done, I thought we should move on.

'But I had forgotten I was on tour with Brezhnev and Khrushchev.'

James, you are in for a surprise.

Oh, bloody hell!

-Oh, God!

-Oh...God...

Those are MiG-15s.

This is astonishing.

That's a 19.

Look at that!

I mean, there's a lot of MiGs here,

really a lot of MiGs.

The drag race has murdered it.

Come on, shut that, let's look at this.

I've never been in a better place to let an engine cool.

-Oh!

-So these are MiG-15s?

-No, that's a 19.

-This is a 19?

-Yeah.

While those two are re-living their Cold War fantasies,

let me talk you through some features of the S Class.

For a start, I can a adjust

the seat sides down here,

the backrest sides, the lumbar overall,

the lumbar cushioning, the shoulders.

Then I access the massage menu because I have a choice -

slow and gentle, slow and vigorous, fast and gentle,

or fast and vigorous.

Ooh.

It's got... The ejector seat handles are where your right shin is.

This is just... Honestly I have never been anywhere...

-Albania is like a museum.

-It is.

Opening the boot lid, it can be done with a key fob,

or it can be done remotely from within the car.

But you don't want to just open it

because how far do you want your boot lid to open?

I can set it here

to open this much, or a little bit wider, assuming there's room, obviously.

'Back in the scrap yard, James was starting to get boring.'

I think the 17 is interesting because it points to a lot of nascent developments

in aerodynamics around that time when transonic and supersonic flight was only just...

The TU-15, two-seater version of the MiG-15 from the Korean War. I believe that will have been built in China.

When the relationship between China and Russia broke down the Chinese made copy-engineered MiG-15s.

But the flaps still work.

Ailerons, dear boy.

'After James's interesting lecture, I turned my attention back to the Mulsanne.'

I don't know that this new Bentley is going to catch on with Bentley's traditional customer base -

Kerry Katona, Jordan, Peter Andre,

John Terry, Brian Cline,

Wayne Rooney, Coleen Rooney and so on.

'But would it be perfect for a leading light in the Albanian Mafia?

'Or would he prefer one of the others? We realised we didn't know.

'So that night, James and I

'dreamed up one more test

'and then, in the bar, we explained it to Hammond.'

What do you mean, "We're going to rob a bank"?

It's a great test. We rob a bank, OK? Use our three cars

as the getaway cars.

The ones that get away from the police and on to the ferry

and back to Corfu are good cars.

If you're caught by the police and you spend the next

-40 years in jail...

-You've got the wrong car and you know what to blame. The Bentley

-might suddenly come good.

-No, it won't.

'The next morning, we found a bank full of money...

'and robbed it.'

Going for a stroll. Look normal. Look normal. Look normal.

Yeah. Take the Merc, that's the quickest.

Oh, God. Hammond! Hammond!

There we are, completely normal.

TYRES SQUEAL

My Merc...

-Clarkson, you

-BLEEP!

Right, Rolls it is.

Seatbelt safety.

-You utter

-BLEEP!

ALARM BELLS RING

TYRES SQUEAL What a pair of utter, utter cars!

Where's the sign to Saranda? I want Saranda.

Oh, zebra crossing. N-not ideal.

Take your time, chum, why not(?) I would.

Saranda? Saranda? This way?

That's the first time EVER

in history, someone escaping from a bank job has asked directions.

Right, can we make it to the ferry

to Corfu without being caught?

Police, police!

SIRENS WAIL

-No! Come on!

-HORNS BEEP

-HE GROANS

-Hello.

Come on!

Why did we rob a bank at rush hour, Hammond?

Yu-u-uh...

Why didn't we use a cashpoint like everyone else?

-HORNS BLARE

-Undercut.

-HORNS BLARE

Yes.

'Meanwhile, in the Mulsanne...'

I can't see a bloody thing.

Come on! TYRES SQUEAL

SIRENS WAIL

Crikey, it's the Albanian rozzers.

Argh!

Really annoying me now, keeps dropping down.

How do women wear tights?

Ooh, squeezing, squeezing...

-They're getting closer.

-'Eventually, the road began to open out.'

Right. Go, go, go, go, go!

Everything you've got, old Roller, come on!

Move!

Don't pull out. Do not...

TYRES SCREECH

-JEREMY:

-BLEEP!

Strewth! How a bank robber lives to be beyond 25 years old, I don't know because it is stressy.

SIRENS WAIL 'In a Bentley, it's VERY stressy.'

The heat's all over me.

Come on, Bentley.

Climbing. Climbing.

Ears popping.

Big drop.

'Annoyingly, on the damp switchback road, Albania's Five-0

'could keep up.'

It rolls a bit more than the Merc.

God. It's like trying to escape in a bed!

I might fall out.

It's got the power. But then you get to a corner -

and this is a biggy -

see, front's gone.

Any curve, any dampness and you've... Whoa.

'Mercifully, though, the road soon straightened out which meant

'Hammond and I could absolutely fly.'

Go, go, go, go, go!

-Oh! What a machine!

-Yes! I like it.

It's faster than I was expecting, this Rolls.

It is genuinely jaw-dropping this thing.

It feels SO fast.

I think I just got air in a Rolls-Royce.

I think I did.

'For James, though, things weren't going so well.'

They're gaining. They're gaining.

No! Catastrophic understeer.

'Up front, Richard and I had left the rozzers far behind.'

The ferry is near now.

Good car, this.

Not as good as my Merc

but a good car none the less.

This is the getaway car of the century.

If you are a leading light

in the Albanian Mafia, look no further.

'Eventually, we made it to the ferry terminal and could taste the freedom.'

-Go, just go!

-Hang on, shouldn't we wait for James?

'But James was in big trouble because the cars chasing us had stopped

'and formed a road block.'

You'll never take me alive, copper.

I'll see you in Spain, lads!

Argh!

GROANING

-See you, James.

-It probably didn't hurt much.

No... Ha-ha-ha!

-So James May is dead.

-Anyway...

-APPLAUSE

-I love Albania. Could you have made THAT

-in any other country in the world?

-Exactly.

-Anyway,

-we must now choose which of the cars is best.

-Yes,

I suppose we must. I prefer the Merc, definitely.

I know that the late James May preferred the Rolls-Royce. He made that very clear.

And as the Bentley is plainly rubbish, I think you have the casting vote.

If you were a leading light of the Albanian Mafia, which car would you buy?

If I was a leading light in the Albanian Mafia, I wouldn't BUY either of them.

-Good point. OK, which do you prefer?

-I am minded to say the Rolls-Royce.

But the problem is, if you have one of these,

one day you will pull up at a set of lights and alongside

will slide Simon Cowell in his bigger Phantom and he'll go...

LAUGHTER

I know what you mean. Be honest, you would only buy the Ghost because you couldn't afford the Phantom.

-Because I don't want that, I'd have the Mercedes.

-Yes!

It's not really a bombshell, is it?

-James's death is a bombshell.

-It's an inconvenience, yes.

That's true. So on that inconvenience, it's time to end.

Thank you so much for watching. See you next week. Good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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