Episode 4 Top Gear

Tonight, our track's a bit foggy.

A man eats a snack.

And we move about in a caravan.

Hello, hello, thank you, everybody, thank you.

Now, there are lambs in the fields and there are buds in the trees

and a whiff of spring in the air.

So the producers gave each of us £2,000 and told us we had to spend it on a convertible four-seater car.

And then they said we had to take the cars we'd bought down to the Top Gear test track

where we'd be given a number of challenges.

This is what I bought.

It's a 1987 BMW 325i convertible.

According to the mileometer it's done 94,000 miles which means

the one thing you can be sure of is it hasn't done 94,000 miles.

But on the face of it, pretty solid car.

Best of all, it only cost £1,600.

CAR HORN HONKS Oh!

Oh, no.

That's awkward.

-That is a 3...

-Yes.

32... Yeah.

-325?

-Yes.

-325.

-Yes.

How old?

-'87.

-'88. How much?

-1,600.

1,950!

How many miles?

94, it says. And?

This "says" 137,000 miles.

I'm pretty pleased with this, at least they didn't fit stupid after-market wheels on it unlike...

-Mine.

-Yours comes from a good area, I can tell. Anyone who's got these.

-Extra locks.

-They don't live in Bourton-on-the-Water, do they?

It's not a Cotswoldian feature, no.

-More St Pauls in Bristol, I'm thinking.

-Yeah.

This is, well, just superb.

So many different shades of black on there, it's unbelievable.

He's taken care of his car.

-Oh ho ho!

-There, you need that.

-Was he delivering paving slabs one at a time?

-No.

-Why is that there?

-Because it improves handling.

'At this point, James arrived in his four-seater convertible.'

-Oh, dear.

-Oh!

-Oh, God!

-I don't suppose by any happy chance that's the 318, is it?

It's a 325, sir. Yours?

-325.

-Is it?

-Yes.

325, yes.

-What year is yours?

-1989.

-How much did you pay?

-£1,900.

-Yours looks pretty standard.

-It is.

-Except for the rust obviously.

Mine's nice.

Don't do that! I've just fixed that.

I barely touched it!

'So none of us had bought an Audi or a Ford or a Merc and that looked like a cock-up.

'But then I realised that, actually, it wasn't.'

I think this is brilliant.

Well, not really. We've got the same car.

We're always being asked. People come up to us and say is a Golf

a good used purchase, or a Volvo or whatever and we always say it depends.

So what we've got here are three cars,

they were made in the same factory by the same robots

at roughly the same time and they've all been driven in the same country by the same sort of people.

-So they should be the same.

-Ah.

But I bet you, I bet you they aren't.

'So we decided to bin the challenges the producers had devised

'and dream up some of our own.'

Where's Hammond?

Don't know, I think we've lost him already.

CAR IGNITION FAILING, CAR ALARM SOUNDS

JEREMY AND JAMES LAUGH

-No, listen, it's...

-Let me hear that sound again.

CAR ALARM SOUNDS

-Oh, dear.

-It keeps doing that.

JEREMY AND JAMES LAUGH

Stop doing that!

'Hammond's cheap after-market alarm matched his cheap after-market wheels.'

They leach into dry rot, they leach into the system.

-There's wires going everywhere.

-Can't you just take it all off?

-No.

-No, because otherwise you could've stolen a car by just taking the alarm off.

They weren't that stupid in the '80s.

-CAR ALARM SOUNDS

-That's got it.

'Jeremy and I decided to abandon Hammond and have a race.

'From 0 to 100 and then back to 0 again,

'so that we could test our cars' power and brakes.'

Here are the vital statistics. 2.5 litre straight-six, 170hp,

at least when it was new, it may have lost a few.

Jeremy has a 2.5 litre straight-six with 170 horsepower,

or at least when it was new, he may have lost a few since then.

The difference, he's got a big slab of concrete in the boot.

It's not the paving stone in the back I'm worried about,

it's the automatic gearbox.

Doing a drag race with an auto is like doing a 100 metre sprint in wellies. Full of tadpoles.

Yes!

Bit of steering wheel wobble coming in.

No concrete is the answer.

There we go, 0 to 60, that was about 25 seconds.

RICHARD'S CAR ALARM SOUNDS, FAILS TO START

90!

Must be able to do 100.

And there it is.

There it is!

No brakes, no brakes.

It's just not stopping.

Please, stop!

'The gap between our supposedly identical BMWs was staggering.'

77, 78, 79, 80, 81.

281 yards.

-There is another conclusion we can draw from this.

-Which is what?

That as you'd expect, I've done this properly

and I've proved myself to be better than you at buying second-hand BMWs.

Well, your brakes are better.

And my engine's better and my gearbox is better.

Speed isn't everything.

Is it not?

RICHARD'S CAR ALARM CONTINUES TO SOUND

After the race, we got Hammond's car going again.

And went to a Waking The Dead-style forensics lab

to find out in great detail what sort of life our cars had had.

-You know the company we're using to do this...

-Mm-hm.

..are called Manlove Forensics.

-Are they?

-They are. No, they are.

Why are they called that?

Yeah, the boss is called John Manlove.

Oh. Not many fond schoolday memories for him, I bet.

They've actually already discovered that your car used to belong to a Muslim man from Birmingham.

What, they can tell that just from swabbing the seats?

No, they found this letter in the footwell.

-Oh, yes.

-Addressed to Jamir Masjid, it's from a mosque in Birmingham.

-They're good, they are good.

-They're good.

'But the test they were doing went far beyond looking for old envelopes.'

Do you know what I'm most worried they'll find in my car?

-What?

-Gentlemen's relish.

I quite like gentlemen's relish.

Oh, you don't mean the stuff from the jar.

'After many hours, the boss came over with the results.'

-Hi, I'm John Manlove.

-Can we stick to John?

Otherwise we're just going to get giggles.

-This vehicle here.

-This is mine.

-This had crisp fragments in it.

-Crisps is fine, nobody's worried about that.

-There was a little bit of vegetation.

-Leaves?

Bits-and-pieces such as that and some flakes of skin.

There'll be mine.

-So that's not too bad, then.

-No, not too bad, fairly standard.

Let's move on, James' car.

Lots of skin in this one.

Including some nice, large flakes of yellowish skin with some blood staining on.

-A scab!

-Somebody's picked a scab in your car.

-Full of scabs. Go on.

-Seriously?

-Anything else worth note?

-Quite a lot of nasal mucus.

That's bogies, he's talking about bogies.

Were they smeared on the seat or the sun visor?

Little balls in the footwell.

Shall I just finish James's car?

-Was there more?

-The last one was that the steering wheel was stained

with a chemical that can be present in high quantities in saliva.

-Gob.

-So basically if you're talking and driving, that's what you may well expect.

So Roy Hattersley owned it? Picked his scabs off, spat all over your steering wheel

and dropped bogies in large quantities in your footwell.

I don't even want to look at your car now!

But then Mr Manlove came to Hammond's car.

First of all, there was some black sports type-tape with what turned out to be blood staining on it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sports tape with blood on the end of it?

-Somebody's been bound.

-And murdered.

Again the steering wheel had what appeared to be saliva staining on it.

And lastly, we had pubic hairs and faeces present.

-I'm sorry, did you say the word "faeces"?

-What certainly appeared to be faecal matter, yes.

That's poo, isn't it?

-That's poo.

-Your car's got poo in it.

Is that normal?

Well, it's like driving around in a Moroccan prison, isn't it, really? In the front of his car.

'After the forensic tests, my colleagues were very distressed.'

Oh, God.

So we decided to pull over and see which of our cars was the most thief-proof.

This meant finding some thieves who insisted that we pixelate their faces.

Unfortunately the pixelating was done by a man who'd just had his car nicked.

Our thieves with the pixelated...

chests will now see how quickly they can break into the cars and drive them away.

Are you ready, chaps? Here we go.

Three, two, one, go!

'I felt sure at this point that thanks to the double locks and the immobiliser,

'my car would finally start to come good.'

I think you'll find they'll take a while getting in.

-He's into mine.

-Oh, he's into yours!

Yeah, but even though... OK, he's in, but I think you'll find...

HE STARTS CAR, CAR ALARM SOUNDS

-That's ridiculous!

-That was honestly,

that was just no time.

Your car is now on a cross-Channel ferry on its way to Uzbekistan.

-It really is quite tense now.

-Come on, Jeremy's thief.

Come on, James' thief.

Come on, Jeremy's thief.

However, after 20 minutes, both our cars were still where we'd left them.

So we decided to call it a draw.

Unsurprisingly, the thief decided to return my car, which meant he could

explain the reason it was so easy to steal is the ignition barrel is all

worn smooth inside so you could start it with the handle of a teaspoon or a lollipop stick.

I think it has done more than 94,000 miles.

So far, then, we'd proved that our identical cars were in fact completely different.

And that Hammond's was full of someone else's pubic hair.

APPLAUSE

I've washed my hands, I've washed my hands.

-I mean, honestly...

-Not nice.

Just knowing that. Isn't it extraordinary when

you buy a used car, you'll do checks to make sure the gearbox is working,

the differential isn't all broken but you don't do anything to check the state of the interior?

It's really weird because I could cope if I thought a car had missed a service or two

or something like that but once I found out that one was full of nasal mucus, I'd have walked away.

Has anyone here bought a used car recently?

Nobody's bought a used car?

So you bought a used car?

-Yes.

-And did you check it out for...

-Scabs?

-Scabs? Blood?

-No.

-Faeces?

-Nothing, no.

-You're from Liverpool?

-Liverpool.

I said bought, anyone here bought!

-Oh, here we go again!

-You have?

Did you check out if it's got any finance owing on it?

-Finance.

-You did finance, you did checks on the mechanical components?

-I did.

-Did you see if there were anybody else's bottom mushrooms growing in the carpet?

-No.

-You didn't. I'm very surprised, I'm really quite surprised. Anyway we're going to pick it up later on.

Now we ought to do the news.

Can I just talk about speed cameras, does anybody mind?

You know Oxfordshire Council announced recently, last year,

it would turn all the speed cameras off and when they said that,

all the road safety groups were running around saying

everybody will be dead in 10 minutes as a result.

Well, six months have now elapsed and the road safety groups are saying they don't know

what effect the switch-off has had on accident figures.

-How can they not know?

-They say they're not in yet.

But I always know pretty much immediately when I've had an accident.

There are clues, big noise, sudden stop, that sort of thing.

The thing is they may not know but I do because I've done some digging.

In a three-month period in 2009, when the cameras were on, there were 35 accidents at speed camera sites.

In the same three-month period when the cameras were switched off

in 2010, there were 35 accidents at speed camera sites.

-No difference.

-No difference at all.

-What about fatalities?

-Fatalities, there were none with the cameras on and none with the cameras off.

-Really?

-What's interesting about this is that you'd think this made no difference and saved the council

a fortune by getting rid of the speed cameras but they're now saying the police are going to take over

-running them and turn them back on again in April.

-I thought they said they couldn't afford to run them?

No, the police are doing it.

-But this is very good news because that must mean they've solved all the other crimes.

-What, the police?

Actually, they haven't solved them all but they have caught that bloke who nicked the lead off my roof.

You had lead stolen from your roof?

-All of it.

-Only you would be the victim of a crime from the 1950s.

Was the villain chased by a black and white policeman blowing a whistle, by any chance?

-Yes.

-Was he driving a Ford Zephyr?

-The thing is I live in Oxfordshire and I was burgled quite recently and they haven't caught her yet.

-Her?

-I'm not sexist.

-Nice touch. Good work.

See? We're not.

I'd like, if you don't mind, to talk about magpies.

It's a car show, Jeremy.

Bear with me, because there's an organisation called the Songbird Survival Trust.

They're calling for a cull on magpies.

They're not calling it a cull, they're saying they want to do an experiment.

Is it an experiment to see what happens to a magpie if you fire a shotgun at it?

Yes, it is, basically.

I agree with them on this but for different reasons. They say if you get rid of magpies then we'll

have more songbirds because magpies eat songbirds, but there's a better reason.

Magpies are a menace to road safety.

-They look like they'd be bad drivers, don't they?

-Stupid idiot, listen, I'm not a superstitious man.

I can walk under a ladder, put my head in a lion's mouth.

That's not a superstition, you idiot, it's a bad idea.

I can put a hat on my new shoes, all those things but I do salute magpies. OK?

The problem is because the magpie is the only bird in Britain these days,

you're just driving along doing this the whole time.

No, you don't just salute, if you see a single magpie, one on its own, you have to say, "Morning, Captain,"

three times. Morning, Captain, morning, Captain, morning, Captain, salute three times, spit three times,

touch your right elbow with your left hand, one, two, three times

and then lick your thumb and make a cross in the top right-hand corner of the windscreen.

-You don't have to do that.

-You do.

-Do you do that when you see a magpie?

-Every single time.

It's quite a faff and it's difficult on the bike but I do it. Morning, Captain...

one, two, three, and then you carry on.

You've both got that completely wrong because what you're supposed to do,

it's only the first magpie of the day and you salute and say. "Morning, Mr Magpie,"

and you don't do it in the afternoon because that's bad luck

and you don't do the second one...

-Rubbish! How do you know it's the first magpie of the day?

-You don't join the Village People.

Is anyone here Jewish?

-Yep.

-You are, where's Jewish, hands up?

You are? Do you know what we're talking about?

-Yeah, Newcastle.

-No, no, no.

It's not Newcastle, I know where you're going with that.

It's just that our studio director's Jewish and has no idea what

we're talking about because he said perhaps Jews don't do it.

Is anyone else Jewish who has no clue?

-You're Jewish, and do you salute magpies?

-No, but we know about it.

You know about it but you don't do it? Interesting.

So it could be a religious thing. I don't know.

-Do Jewish people have more road accidents as a result of magpies?

-No, fewer.

Jewish people will have fewer road accidents because they're not spending all day long doing this.

Anyway, look. To cut to the point here,

whether you do my simple salute which is correct, or his full morris dance...

Can't be too careful.

We need to stop it because the advantages are huge

because if you get rid of magpies, you have more songbirds so the air sounds nicer.

You've got tits and... Why did I say tits?

Sparrows and all that sort of thing and that'd be brilliant,

plus we don't have to do that and that'll make the roads safer.

There we are, Top Gear top tip, kill all magpies and kill them now.

Hey, listen, listen.

There's a new lightweight Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder that's come along. Here it is.

It's called the Performante. That's going to cost you a hundred and...

I can't read that. What's that say?

You poor, knackered old goat.

-£188,000.

-£188,000.

-Top speed I do know. 201 mph.

-Is that possibly the best-looking car in production right now?

It is a fantastic-looking car.

The problem is it's getting quite old and compared to the Ferrari 458, it just feels old-fashioned.

The thing is, this isn't just a duel now between the Italians,

because the British have moved in with a new McLaren.

Yes, it's called the MP4-12C.

We've got it here in the studio and this is the first time we've been able to have a proper look at it.

It has McLaren's own engine, a 3.8 litre twin-turbo V8.

It also has very sophisticated computer-controlled suspension.

And, most interestingly, it was tested here at the Top Gear test track.

We should stress we had nothing to do with the testing or development of it at all.

No, nothing whatsoever. The thing that bothers me, Hammond, is I've driven the 458 a lot, as you know.

I love it and I cannot see how this can be better.

I know, but what if it is?

There are a few pointers. For one thing, it's cheaper than the 458.

-You can't get in!

-I can.

-It's also more powerful, 592 brake horse power, which is 30 or so more.

-These are good signs.

-I like it in here because they've made the steering wheel the steering wheel.

They haven't fallen into that trap of putting buttons all over it to make it feel like Formula 1.

They don't make you choose on your instrument panel between the speedometer and the sat nav

like Ferrari do. All that stuff they put here, and your music, on a sort of iPad thing in the middle.

It's a fantastic place to be.

My only problem with this really is, I like a supercar to look a bit crazy, a bit mad, like a Zonda.

If you ask me, this is sort of plain.

You say Zonda, but which Zonda do you mean?

Well, the Pagani Zonda, as opposed to the Kia Zonda or the Ford Zonda.

No, you see, over the years, there have been thousands of them.

The saga began 12 years ago when Pagani launched this - Genesis.

The very brilliant and very dramatic C12.

A year later, they introduced a slightly faster version called the C12S,

and we saw that it was good.

Then there was the Roadster S and the Monza, and the F,

and the F Roadster.

And then, just when we thought every angle had been explored, the F Clubsport.

We imagined that this would be the final Zonda, the final encore.

But we were wrong.

Welcome, everyone, to the Zonda R, the last of the breed.

And by far the most confusing.

It looks like a pure-bred racer, but you can't race it,

because there are rules and regulations in motor sport,

and this meets none of them. And if you try to take it on the road,

a policeman is going to stop you and say, "Sir, where are your indicators

"and why do you not have any tread on your tyres?"

So if it's not for racing and it's not for the road,

what is it for?

Well, this.

ENGINE DROWNS SPEECH

Annoyingly, the R is so loud that our team of sound recordists had to have a bit of a rethink.

What I was saying before I had this microphone fitted is, it really is jolly fast.

Very jolly fast!

0 to 60 takes 3 seconds.

Top speed? Nobody knows. Definitely more than 230, though.

The main reason for all this phenomenalness is the engine.

It's a six-litre Mercedes V12, which produces 740 horsepower.

And it's being used to power a car which weighs less than a Ford Fiesta.

That makes the performance extremely dramatic!

The Zonda R recently blitzed their own record at the Nurburgring.

It got round in 6 minutes and 47 seconds,

and from where I'm sitting, I cannot work out why it took so long.

I can only assume the driver stopped off halfway round to read a book.

Bruce Forsyth could get this thing round the Nurburgring in less time than that.

All Zondas look like they will be more complicated to drive than spaceships, but they're not.

They're easy.

And because this one has grippy, slick tyres, it's the easiest of the lot.

You can whizz about at top speed

and you've got time and brain power to think,

"I really like the way they've got these air vents laid out."

That's a nice strap, kind of old-fashioned and modern all at the same time.

It doesn't really matter if you're not concentrating.

Because it doesn't weigh anything

and because its carbon brakes are so enormous,

it will go from 125 mph to a dead stop in 4.3 seconds.

Oh, yeah. Like that.

The only way to stop faster is to hit a tree.

And this is the first Zonda to have a flappy-paddle gearbox.

It isn't the most refined system in the world, if I'm honest, but it is quick.

And it does mean that when you floor it, you enjoy the fury

and all you have to do when the fury runs out, pull the lever and it starts all over again.

Go! Yeah. Go! Go! Yes, go!

Go, go, go!

This car is fantastic.

An extraordinary example of what can be done when there are no rules.

But for a toy, it is a bit expensive.

The car will cost you £1.46 million, and because most British racetracks

have noise limits, which this breaches, you'll need your own.

And the going rate for one of those these days,

about 6 billion. Billion!

One last go, come on.

Honestly, what a machine.

What a machine.

It seems a shame, then, that we wave goodbye to the Zonda with a car that is absolutely brilliant,

but also completely useless.

The people at Pagani obviously thought so, too,

because they recently announced

that the R would not be the last Zonda after all.

They would actually finish by making five road-going versions of it.

And then they'd really, definitely finish with five convertible versions of those.

But like a 1970s rock band, they don't seem to be able to end the song,

because they now say that there will be another, one last hurrah.

This is it, the Tricolore.

Named after the Italian Air Force aerobatic squadron,

this, too, is a quietened down, softer version...

..of the R.

It's heavier, slightly less powerful,

and thanks to normal - oops - road tyres, a lot less grippy.

Ha ha!

Oh, dear.

But it's still a great car.

And still properly, properly fast.

Ho, ho, ho!

And because you don't need your own track, it's about 6 billion less than the R.

That makes it good value.

But, of course, what makes this

the best value of all is that I'm driving Revelation.

The final encore.

Bye-bye, Zonda.

Bye-bye.

APPLAUSE

Poor old Richard Hammond. You know, the Zonda is his favourite car and now it's all gone.

No, actually, because after I made that film,

-Zonda announced they would make two more Tricolores.

-Really? But then it's over?

No, because when they finish doing those, they're going to make a new one called the 750.

-Then that's the last Zonda?

-No, because after that... I'm not joking.

-They're doing one called the HH.

-Then they're going to start

finally building the new car, the... What's it called?

-Huarrr...

-Yeah, that one. Huayra.

While they're dithering about, making up their mind, it's time to find out how fast this one,

the R, goes round our track. Of course, that means handing it over to our tame racing driver.

Some say his nipples are explosive.

And that he's recently had a Mexican...

I mean Brazilian! I mean Brazilian! Why did I say that?

I'm sorry, Mr Ambassador. Anyway, all we know is he's called the Stig.

And he's off. I can't imagine this is going to take very long.

V12 AMG fury powering towards the first corner. Here we are.

So much grip in this car.

It is just gliding through.

Bit of a four-wheel drift there.

No stereo, of course, just 12 cylinders singing.

Actually, not singing, shouting! Actually very wide through Chicago.

How will he attack Hammerhead?

Leaning hard on those incredible brakes. Yes. He's nailed it now.

Yes, he's through.

Really open the taps now.

Cuts a steady throttle through the follow-through.

Unsettled a bit by the bump on the apex. Stig not scared.

Two corners left. It stays so flat. It actually looks undramatic.

Oh, a spit of flame!

Into Gambon and across the line.

APPLAUSE

I have the time here.

He did it in 1:26.7.

-No!

-No, I'm lying.

1:08.5.

CHEERING

The thing is, you may remember, a couple of years ago,

Michael Schumacher came here and took a Ferrari FXX round,

which is the same sort of thing as this, OK?

That was 1:10.7.

So that is 2.2 seconds quicker than Schumacher in a Ferrari, on slick tyres as well.

-Amazing. Either that car is truly incredible...

-Or?

The Stig is rather underpaid.

-Yes. There's one more thing we have to do, I'm afraid.

-Get rid of it.

Yes, of course. It's not a road car. It has no place on our board.

-It's the rules.

-It's the rules, I'm afraid.

Let me cheer you up, because it's time now to put a star in our reasonably-priced car.

In fact, this week, two stars.

These guys, well, they've fought off zombies in London.

They've had a knife fight in a supermarket in the West Country.

More recently, they've helped an alien get back to its home planet.

So they're either actors or massive liars. Let's find out.

Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Gentlemen! How are you?

I'm very well. Good to see you.

Look what we've got here.

Great to see you, guys. Great to see.

-You two have known each other for donkey's years, haven't you?

-Yes. 17-18 years.

-Met in a restaurant?

Yes, Mexican restaurant.

-LAUGHTER

-I can never go back now.

They've ripped up my Golden Fajita Card.

You became friends because you shared a love of Star Wars noises?

-Yeah.

-That's kind of how we bonded. We met because Nick was interested

in being a stand-up comic, I was a stand-up comic.

We met, went out a few times. I did this.

HE BEEPS LIKE A STAR WARS ROBOT

Which is a noise that a small droid... I can see you glaze over.

No, I'm quite good at Star Wars, but I am struggling here.

That's why I fell in love with him, because I thought no-one knew about that except me,

and then he did it to me and it was like he'd sprayed me with his nerd musk.

-That was it, then.

-How loving.

It must be great working with your friends, I imagine.

I don't know, obviously.

We have the new film, which is out this week.

-Valentine's Day.

-It's called Paul.

The idea was literally a spitball in the garden when we were shooting Shaun Of The Dead.

The weather was really bad. Our producer said, "Can't we shoot somewhere where it's always sunny?"

We thought of the desert, then because of our nerd minds, we went straight to Area 51.

That became aliens. We said, "OK, there's two guys and there's an alien and they help him get home."

We've got a clip of the film, which we can look at.

Put...the phone...down.

Ha-ha-ha!

-What have you done to him?

-I didn't do anything to him. He fainted.

Yeah, but you made him faint.

But it's not like I set my phaser to faint.

-You've got a phaser?!

-No! Look, listen.

Hey, I really need your help, OK?

Can we get this guy back on your wagon?

HE GIBBERS

-Are you an alien?

-To you, I am, yes.

-Are you going to probe us?

Why does everyone assume that? What am I doing?

-Am I harvesting farts? How much can I learn from an ass?

-W-w-what?

-I love the alien.

-He's great, isn't he?

-A brilliant alien.

What gave you the idea to make your alien smoke and swear?

We just liked the idea that he's been on earth longer than Graham and Clive have.

He's less alien than they are, really. They're two British guys out of their depth.

He's been hanging round, smoking strong weed that he gets off the military,

that he claims killed Bob Dylan.

Did you get to drive your RV across America?

-We had to learn how to drive.

-This is going to sound really

-BLEEP

-but we had a driver.

-What?

-Neither of us have ever driven an RV.

The point of it was that we would be sitting, writing, while America

drifted past and we just thought, "Let's have a driver."

He was the guy that did that amazing handbrake turn in Meet The Fockers.

De Niro's big CIA blacked-out RV. There's a bit in that when it turns a full handbrake turn.

-He was the driver?

-He left me driving... We decided to take

a highway because we were running behind time.

He really needed the toilet, so he left me at the wheel and I started to lose control.

Nick was going, "Small corrections, small corrections!" "I can't! I can't!"

Steve came out the toilet, doing up his flies...

There was the old story of the guy that rented one, an English guy rented an RV for his holiday.

It said cruise control, so he put on cruise control. "Lovely!"

Nobody could work out, in the accident, why he was killed with a kettle in his hand.

Doing 80 mph. Stupid idiot. Anyway, so look, the lap, this is why you're here.

-I know you were nervous, because you thought that your size would count against you.

-Yeah.

-Whereas you, of course... What do you weigh?

-I'm 11.5 stone.

-My leg weighs that much!

-But the thing is, are you very fit?

-At the moment I am, because I'm doing Mission Impossible 4

as we speak, and I'm sort of having to be...

I'm an agent now, so I need to be on...

I had a long conversation with Mr Cruise about his appearance on this. Still talks about it.

-Does he?

-He is full of Top Gear.

-He has such a shallow and empty life, obviously.

But he is obsessed with it.

Nevertheless, whose lap shall we see first?

Let's have a look, shall we, at... your lap, Simon?

Come on, Simon. Let's see your lap. Here we go.

HE SPLUTTERS

-I've changed gear. That's a good sign.

-Yep.

Right, first corner.

Nice wide line in there.

New Stig does teach that line.

-He does, yeah.

-Very... Ooh, you're not using all the road, though.

Come on, you motherhumper.

-Mother what?

-Motherhumper.

Motherhumper? Nice. Watershed language.

That's looking quite tidy.

Where are you going? Oh, Hammerhead. Let's have a look. Whoa!

That's squirreling underbraking. That is quite impressive.

Right. Keep it in between the lines.

Just about... Yep.

-It's much sportier than the last one.

-This is a great car.

See apostrophe Dee.

TYRES SCREECH

-That noise.

-I know.

Ooh, that gives me a funny feeling!

Really?

Whoa! Almost had the back wheel off the ground there.

Right, second-to-last corner is where most people go wrong.

-That is extremely tidy.

-Look at that.

And Gambon...

Looking very smooth through there.

And there we are - we've crossed the line. Lovely.

APPLAUSE

Now...

-Before we get on to how you did...

-Yeah.

..I think we should have a look at Nick's lap.

-OK.

-Now, Nick, your practices weren't entirely smooth.

No. I've sat forward already. No, I just wanted to go for it and see what happened.

Of course, on the second-to-last corner...

Well, let's have a look at what happened.

This is ballsy.

Too ballsy, in fact.

LAUGHTER

That's a proper spin! What's that?

Hitting the kerb. You could have rolled!

-APPLAUSE

-That's what I call ballsy.

I think the thing about being in a...

being a big guy in a small car when you roll it

is there's nowhere for you to go so it's fine,

-you just roll around.

-You're wedged in and your eyes go around.

-Yeah.

Nick, let's see how you got on.

ENGINE REVS

TYRES SCREECH

-Right. Good start.

-Ah, that rubber smell.

Reminds me of my honeymoon!

LAUGHTER

Helmet suits you, got to say.

I'm not going to talk about the honeymoon, that's why.

Right, first corner.

That's a tighter line there than Simon's and using all the road.

When it squeals, ease it off.

Just like a bag of pigs.

LAUGHTER

'I was trying to channel you.'

'I'm not even going to go anywhere with these remarks in the car.

'A bag of pigs.

'Less aggressive on the brakes than Simon was there.

'Now, let's have a look. Does this look tidy?'

BRAKES SQUEAL

-'Ooh, little chirrup.

-Slow.

'Looks slow. Could be fast, though. You never know.

'And on to the straight.'

You waved!

Why do I keep looking in the mirror?

-Why did I keep looking in the mirror?

-I don't know.

It's natural. It's in everybody they must check the mirror.

Swing it to the right.

Past the wall of tyres.

No, left! Left, left! It's left on the wall!

-I went out right...

-Oh, I see, to come in again.

-My willy feels funny.

-LAUGHTER

That's a James May problem. He's always saying he has this fizzing penis root.

Right, there we... Ooh, so where are we going?

-Whoa!

-Tom Cruise line! There we are -

-we've crossed the line.

-APPLAUSE

That's two wheels!

That's dangerous, with me being on the right, too. That could have...

Now, that is... There's Michael Gambon, Tom Cruise

-and you have had it on two wheels in that last corner.

-Good.

-Awesome.

-But was it enough? That is the question.

I can feel my heart in my ears.

LAUGHTER

-Right. Simon.

-Yes?

You're first in the list, OK?

When you were last here, you did it in 1:48.05, which actually is a very quick time, in that old...

-It was a Lacetti, wasn't it?

-It was, yeah.

So where do you think you've come this time? 1:48.05 - where do you think you are now?

I honestly couldn't tell you.

Well, you did it in 1...

40...

-4...

-Ooh!

-Wow.

-..9!

-Wow!

-You...

APPLAUSE

..are there.

So you'll be able to tell Tom Cruise you're right on top of Cameron Diaz... This isn't working, is it?

-I think it's working fine.

-Between Cameron and Tom. That's great.

You are between Cameron and Tom. Now, Nick, obviously the heavyweight.

Yeah. Are you going to put HW on mine?

-LAUGHTER

-FF.

-Ah!

-Aw!

He nearly killed a journalist in Birmingham once for making a joke about his weight.

-I did.

-Did you?

-I grabbed him round his throat.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-That's what the new Ferrari's called.

I was talking about Ferrari.

I feel like Chewbacca now.

-"Let the wookiee win."

-HE GRUNTS

-Where do you reckon you've come on that?

-I don't know. 1:49, maybe.

Well, you did it in 1...

40...

4...

-Oh!

-..point 5.

-Oh!

-So that puts you third...

We did really well.

Well done.

Thank you, Jeremy.

-Are you surprised by this?

-Imagine if I weighed 11 stone. I'd get round in 1:08!

That is a remarkable performance. Have you done track? You've been here before.

-I've never done it.

-You've never driven on a track?

-I bought you a track day, you never went.

-I never went.

You should try and take it up because there's a natural talent.

Ladies and gentlemen, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you very much.

-Well done, man.

-I know.

-Brilliant.

Right, moving on.

Tonight...

Tonight we are engaged in a challenge that was supposed to be

to find the best four-seater convertible you can buy for less than £2,000.

Yeah. Sadly, though, we all bought BMW 325i.

So instead we're finding out how different

three supposedly identical cars have become over the years.

Yeah. So far we've discovered that his car is full of mucus and mine full of poo...

-And pubic hair.

-Yeah. And spent most of the time broken down.

But as we rejoin the action, all three cars are actually working.

What you're looking at here is the Stig

setting a lap time in the modern-day equivalent of our cars.

A time we shall try to match.

I'm, in some ways, confident. I have the paving slab in the boot giving me better handling,

and yet not confident at all because I have no brakes.

-I wonder if my brakes are any good.

-You don't know, do you?

-Not really, no.

Oooh, stand back!

1:35.09.

Right, now we just have to see which one of us gets closest to that time.

Here we go.

Wipers not working.

OK, this, little BMW, is when you win back your stripes.

It's been lowered.

I think you'll find it'll suddenly emerge as the star.

TYRES SCREECH

Get out of the way, you incompetent, long-haired old spaniel.

I think this is Chicago.

Come on, paving stone, do your work.

TYRES SCREECH

Holy moley!

These old 325is, they had semi-trailing on rear suspension.

They were known as the third biggest killer of yuppies because of the tail-happiness,

after Porsche 911 and accidents involving races.

Here's the non-braking Jeremy Clarkson.

I'll go get Hammond.

Ooh. I think I'm wasting quite a lot of time being sideways here.

'Hammond was very easy to catch because whoever had lowered his car hadn't done a very good job.'

He's got a wobble.

Whoa!

My car obviously isn't the fastest here, but it seems to be the most stable.

TYRES SCREECH

BLEEP

'In truth,

'all of our ultimate driving machines had lost their edge.'

Oh, dear.

'But Hammond's was in a class of its own.'

Oh-ho!

He's gone. He's so gone now.

Ha-ha-ha!

Ha-ha-ha!

There's a simple rule when you're buying a car, demonstrated by Hammond here.

If it's been modified, especially if it's been lowered, walk away.

I'm beginning to think Jeremy's rather crude handling pack might be the answer.

'With one lap to go, we all decided to really go for it.'

No, no, no. Don't do that. Damn.

My seat's collapsed, badly.

'Still, could be worse.'

ENGINE WHINES

ENGINE WHISTLES

Yeah!

Right.

Well, I hope I got a quick time in.

We'd find out soon enough because the results were in.

-Here we are, these are the times. Remember, the Stig did it in 1:35.

-Yeah.

James - 1:55.04.

Me - 1:55.03 is my best.

And, Jeremy, your best,

1:48.0 - which means you win.

-It's a hollow victory.

-Where's your car?

-Over there.

-It's quite broken.

-What's wrong with it?

-Well...

the rear hose let go, sprayed water over the electrics, which shorted them out.

The exhaust manifold is cracked

-and the head's cooked.

-You've killed it.

Luckily for Jeremy, our next experiment didn't involve any movement.

Over time, the roof on a convertible will get baggy and start to leak.

To see which of our cars leaks the most,

we've devised an ingenious test.

James is sitting in his car holding his breath, because his car is full of gas.

Now if the car leaks, the gas will escape, and when he needs to take a breath, he'll be fine.

If it doesn't leak, the gas won't escape and when he needs to take a breath, he'll be in trouble.

So is it cyanide we're using?

-No, helium.

-Helium?

-Yeah.

-Pure helium?

-Yes.

-That'll kill him.

-Yes.

-JAMES EXHALES

-Here we go.

-He's breathing.

-That's it, come on.

-HIGH-PITCHED:

-Whose idea was this test? Bloody stupid idea.

OTHERS LAUGH It's a very good idea.

We've learned about your car.

You sound like Donald Duck because your car has done well.

Given the contents of his car, Hammond quite enjoyed holding his breath.

HE EXHALES

NORMAL PITCH: Ah, you see mine's had a new... Oh!

OTHERS LAUGH

Not a new roof fitted very well.

-You thought you'd have a squeaky voice!

-I was expecting a full Smurf and it's not worked.

Finally it was Jeremy's turn.

-He's going to have to breathe. He's done it.

-Right.

-HIGH-PITCHED:

-I just have to say that's stupid.

It's just a test of how big your lungs are.

After this we got Jeremy's car going

and went to see a group of BMW specialists.

Their job was to calculate the cost

of returning each of our cars to showroom condition.

These cars come from a time when people fitted after-market stereos.

Let me talk you through this one.

Here's the radio.

-STATIC

-That's Radio 1, Radio 2,

-Radio 3, Radio 4...

-STATIC CONTINUES

..Radio 5.

STATIC CONTINUES

Don't know what that is.

Eventually the experts had finished their assessments.

-Who has the results for Richard Hammond's sewage farm?

-I do.

£7,500.

7,500 to put that into showroom condition?

Sir, you have the results for James' car.

-Around 5,500.

-So £2,000 less.

-Well done.

-Did you just say well done?

-I did.

You're a girl. How much would mine cost to put into show?

Well, how many pence?

-HE CLEARS THROAT

-Er...11,000.

-That's pounds, not pence.

-OTHERS LAUGH

-What a pile of junk!

-Why is it £11,000?

What possible reason is there for that?

-Oh.

-Oh, there's a few reasons.

Oh, it's blown away.

Since none of our cars were really roadworthy, we decided at this point

that the best thing we could do with them was form a stunt driving team.

We began by watching the experts.

How do they memorise the moves?

That was a J-turn.

I can do all the moves individually, I think.

'It all looked terribly complicated and that was a worry,

'because the next day, we would be performing in front of a live audience.'

Wow. That's quite good.

We're going to need to work on that.

'We began by planning our moves on a blackboard.'

That's the nose of the car that way, pointing that way. That's James.

Over here, right, that's Jeremy.

Then here...

-Those cars both have J on.

-They both have J.

-So it could be...

-Oh.

'James took over.'

We have a numbering system, so you go first. I cross behind you...

Everything goes through that point, the point of the performance...

'But his plans were a bit confusing.'

Sorry, I'm lost.

Which is my dotted line now?

-That one.

-No, you were this one.

-Yeah, it is that one.

'Nevertheless, we wet the track to make it more slippery

'and got to work.'

Right, here we go.

'Initially, things didn't go well.'

This is just a lot of driving about.

-Why have you gone over there?

-Sorry.

'Then, thanks to my awful brakes, they got worse.'

-I'm not stopping, I'm not stopping!

-MUFFLED THUMP

Oh, damn it.

'Despite everything, though, the next day we were ready to perform

'at one of the most prestigious venues in the country...'

In the wild, birds of prey...

'..The Essex County Fair.

'Our cars had been given a new lick of paint,

'and as zero hour approached,

'we were in our motor home rehearsing our moves.'

-Go.

-Right, so...

-Turn, Turn, through.

-And I'm here.

-Handbrake.

-Back forwards.

-Face the other way by then.

-Through the gap. Round you.

-Handbrake.

-OK, ready? And then now...

-Cross, I go first.

Over there.

-It's going to be magnificent.

-Right, let's do it.

-We're a bit like the Red Arrows.

-Pretty much. It's quite an exciting moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, introducing from TV's Top Gear, The Dukes Of Harlow stunt driving team.

'The capacity crowd was beside itself.

'As the music signalled the start of our routine, we entered the arena.'

MUSIC: "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen

We'd better deliver. Suddenly feel this is quite a responsibility.

Right, left, down...

left, straight up.

Must remember that crossover.

Ready, steady, go.

And turn, turn.

Oh!

Now, it is a shame we can't show you the rest of that film,

-but we lost the tapes.

-Yes!

-Can you believe it?

-LAUGHTER

-You left them on a bus. And then the dog ate them.

-Yeah. Dog ate them.

-It is a rotten...

It is a massive shame, because the rest of our routine was brilliant.

It's just a tragedy you can't see it. I do apologise.

Never mind, it does at least give us time to knock up a scoreboard and see who bought the best car. Jeremy?

Yes. In the 0 to 100 and then 0 again test,

James set the benchmark, so he gets zero.

I got minus 281 and, Hammond, you got minus 1,000.

-I didn't even take part.

-That's why you get minus 1,000.

Now, forensics, you get ten points off for every disgusting thing that was found in your car.

Mine was crisps, leaves and bits of my own skin, so that's not really disgusting at all, so 0.

James, you were mucus, scabs and saliva.

You're minus 30.

Hammond, you, let's get this straight, you were saliva, blood...

-But there was no mucus in mine!

-No mucus, but there was pubic hair...

-Yeah, yeah.

-..so minus 30 and then poo.

-Yeah.

-That's 1,000...

-Why do I get minus 1,000 for poo?

-Because poo's really disgusting!

Of course you're going to get minus 1,000 for that.

-We don't make the rules. The thief test. Jeremy...

-JEREMY MOUTHS:

-We do!

-Your car wasn't stolen so you get 0.

-Yeah.

My car wasn't, so I get 0.

-Hammond, your car was stolen.

-Yes?

-And you get minus 1,000.

Do I? LAUGHTER

-How do you get to that?

-It just is, it's scientific, this. Lap times.

You didn't get minus 1,000 for that.

They're there. The gas test.

Let's get this straight. No gas escaped from my car so I get 0.

No gas escaped from your car, James, so that's nought.

All of the gas escaped from yours so that's minus...

-Let me guess.

-Yes, you're right, it's minus 1,000.

-Is it?

-Is it really?

-Yes, it is.

-The restoration test, here you lose a point

for every pound it would take to get your car back to showroom condition.

Now, I, as you would expect, did best at this,

so I'm minus 5,500 points.

It's like being on QI, this.

Hammond, you are minus 7,500 points.

-And Jeremy Clarkson...

-Mmm-hmm.

..you are minus 11,000.

Ah! I might beat... Well, not him, but you, anyway.

-What have you got, James?

-I've won, obviously.

-That's a given.

You are...

minus 11,293.1.

-Minus 11,293.1.

-Yes.

-So, Hammond, this is tense.

-Minus 11,000...

-Still hope, though. I can still do it.

-Oooh!

-549...

-Yes!

APPLAUSE

I mean, well done, James.

But, really, two conclusions we can draw from this.

One, all identical cars aren't necessarily identical.

Some of them do have pubic hairs in them and poo.

And two, Richard Hammond, who buys more used cars than any man alive,

is useless at buying used cars.

-I am.

-On that bombshell, it's time to end.

See you next week. Take care. Good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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