Episode 5 Top Gear

Tonight, I hold up a jar.

James points at a hill.

Richard eats a sandwich.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Hello! Hello and welcome! Thank you so much, everybody! Thank you.

We start tonight with a big and important issue.

You see, back in 1975,

just 15% of people aged over 70 had a driving licence.

Today, it's more than 60%, and that means

the roads are full of people whose eyes are broken and whose feet hurt.

And car-makers are just not recognising this fact.

Most modern cars are made for techno-savvy teenagers.

Yeah, my mother, she just says all she wants from a car

is Classic FM and a heater

and everything else is a waste of money and annoying

and possibly even dangerous.

Which is why Jeremy and I decided it was time we went out and bought

a car to modify specially for today's enormous army of pensioner drivers.

This meant heading to the Top Gear Technology Centre -

the birthplace of all our great projects.

And, while Richard went off to buy a car which we could modify,

I examined the scale of the problem.

This Volvo has very few buttons, and that's a good thing, but each

one seems to do 28 different things depending on how you push it.

What does My Car mean? BLIS? DSTC?

Collision Warning? Why would you want to turn that off?!

And look at these - if you're 85,

these are just out-of-focus hieroglyphics!

Things were just as bad in this Ford Focus.

What does Block 5A mean?

There's literally nothing,

nothing on here which is old-people friendly.

"Press source for USB BT line in."

I'm sure all this makes perfect sense

to the foetus that designed it,

but to anyone over 65 it is just incomprehensible gibberish.

'Before I had a chance to get to grips with the Citroen...'

-Oh, for

-BLEEP

-sake! '..Richard was back with the car he'd bought -

'a Fiat Multipla, famous for having three seats in the front

'and three in the back.

'To decide what to do with it, we set up a mood room.'

GENTLE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC

All top designers use rooms like this to put them into

the actual mind of the customers they're trying to attract.

So, for example, we have an early vacuum cleaner, a one-bar heater,

a TV listings magazine, many of which are available,

with the programmes we want to watch highlighted.

It really is just like being in James May's front room.

Well, where do you think we got everything from?

What I'm seeing with every single thing in here

is simplicity and comfort.

Comfort on the chair, simplicity of the mop, the kettle, the TV.

Everything is simple.

It's simple...straightforward and yet,

in the case of this small sofa, also strangely itchy.

JEREMY LAUGHS

After several intense hours in the mood room, we at least knew

what colour our car should be, so we went off to get some paint.

Excuse me, you know this machine, can you match the colours of things?

Yeah, we can try.

Can you match the colour of this hearing aid, this bit,

specifically that bit. That is a symphony in beige.

That's the colour we want. Can it really do that?

So analyse the colour of the hearing aid. Can it do my left nipple?

With the paint sorted,

we went back to the Top Gear Technology Centre to begin work.

Look at this dash. Speedo - out of focus. Radio - too complicated.

It's all going to be changed, all of it.

I've been thinking about safety and not just for the car's occupants.

So, with that in mind, old people find it very difficult to look around

when they're reversing - it's just a fact -

so I'm planning a system for the rear, to help them

stop reversing into garage walls and lamp posts, their wives.

I'm also planning much, much bigger door mirrors.

Then, at the front, a radical redesign of the front bumper

to avoid and minimise expensive bodywork damage.

I'm thinking.

After several hours,

Jeremy's dashboard was beginning to take shape.

-Um, airbags.

-Yeah.

Dangerous, because you're not allowed to put children in the front seat

-with them there because they're too delicate.

-Yeah.

Old people, they tend to sit quite far forwards even

-when they're not driving.

-And they're just as delicate as children.

There you go - danger. So I think we get rid of them. Can I have them?

-Yeah, I don't need them.

-I've got a plan.

I'll have your airbags out in literally...

-Are you sure this is...? I'm not sure this is...

-Yes!

But the airbag had to be defused by cutting one of the two wires.

Which one do I cut? One presumably sets the bomb off.

-Well, not bomb, but explosives.

-Yeah.

-How much explosive is in an airbag?

-Quite a lot.

-Is there?

-Is it really a lot?

-It is, genuinely it's a lot.

You can get burns from it. It's a lot.

-So let's get inside the mind of the man who made it.

-He's Italian.

-Yeah.

So if I think it's blue, it's probably brown.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Wait! Yeah, no, you see, brown - that might be what they want you to think.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

Wait! Wait. What colours are in the Italian flag?

None of those.

DRAMATIC MUSIC

-Ah, you see! It was easy!

-I wasn't worried.

-We could just edit all that stuff out.

-Yeah.

While Hammond continued with his safety features, I started

making a new dashboard and soon had something to show my colleague.

You know elderly people like to drive quite slowly?

-Yeah, like James.

-Exactly.

So this is what I've done to get round the problem.

Brilliant - so it only reads 20 even if they're doing 80 miles an hour.

115! "I'm only doing 17 miles an hour," so they're happy.

The people stuck behind, whose wives are in labour

and they have meetings to get to, they're happy. Everybody wins.

'I was also rather proud of my old-people-friendly rear fog light.'

This'll be mounted in the car - this is the switch.

So as soon as it starts a little bit of light drizzle,

the elderly person turns on the rear fog light

and then what happens round the back is...

absolutely nothing at all.

With the new dash sorted, I started to think about the rear seats and I

went online to search for an advert I remembered from the early '80s.

And that's it, that's it! Hammond! Hammond! Come and look at this!

Watch this commercial. Ready?

It's grand to find a comfortable chair

when you're getting on a bit or you've got arthritis.

My niece got this from Shackletons, you know.

-You know!

-You know!

-You know!

Shackletons' original high seat.

Never thought it would be so easy to get in and out of.

Shackletons' high seat chair. It's lovely.

Hang on, so you're saying replace that with one of those?

But they're so easy to get in and out of, YOU KNOW!

And it is lovely to find a nice, high seat.

MUSIC: "A-Team" theme

-Things were better in the old days.

-They were.

-Fact.

-Oh!

-Oh-ho, oh-ho!

Ohhhh...

Come on, that is brilliant!

'Our car was coming along nicely.

'We removed the Fiat badges, which were a bit foreign,

'and replaced them with something more appropriate.

'Hammond softened the suspension and I installed a pet cage.'

A cat bolted to the roof?

I'm not bolting the cat, I'm bolting the cat cage to the roof

and then it'll be up here and I won't get asthma.

'As I was busy with my cat carrying system,

'Hammond decided to make some covers for the front seats.'

Weirdly, I've used this as my inspiration. It's a BAC Mono.

Because it's a track car, it's got no roof or doors or windows,

so they line the interior with this special material.

I've got some here.

In beige, obviously.

Now, it's quite plush, it feels like suede or even velvet,

but when it gets wet, here's the strange thing -

the water just runs off.

Look at that! You'd think it would be ruined, but it just flies away.

I'm going to use it to make what I shall call inconti seat covers.

By the evening, our car was almost finished, but we felt a bit strange.

What's extraordinary about today is that, without James here, there

have been no arguments, nobody's caught fire, nobody's fallen over.

We've been like a well-oiled machine

and I think we've created something really rather brilliant.

And with that, back to the studio.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The thing is, I've just got a question, actually.

What do you do...?

While we're on the subject of old people, what do you do when you know

that your mother or father is really too old to be driving any more?

Good question. You can't really say, "Hand over your licence."

I think that's why our car makes so much sense.

Yeah, and we shall see how it does in a road test later on.

-What happened to your eye?

-Nothing, nothing at all.

No, because you weren't there with your slap-happy attitude,

no part of the needle of the sewing machine went in it.

-Not even a tiny...

-No, not even a tiny bit.

-No. No.

-So, the news.

-You know there's a new Volkswagen Golf?

-Yes.

-Very nice, actually.

But in four months there'll be a GTI version of it.

Now, that will have 217 horsepower...

Or no, actually, it's German - cowpower.

217 cowpower engine and it's going to be about £25,000.

Thing is, though, there's going to be a rival for this.

You know the car we looked at last week, the Kia Cee'd, well,

look at this. This is the... They're calling it the Pro Cee'd GT.

-I think that looks rather good.

-It does.

And it's two grand less than the Volkswagen.

Nearly three grand less.

And the thing I like about that is they haven't gone absolutely

mad with it. It's a 1.6 litre turbo, 200 horsepower, which is...

-Well, no, it's not horsepower. It's Korean.

-It's dogpower, yeah.

Exactly, yeah.

I tell you what, though, if you don't want to spend that much,

the reason we bring these hot hatchbacks up

is, Volkswagen has announced, you know the Up, which we love?

-It's a great little car.

-Really brilliant little car.

They've announced they're doing a GT version of it here, OK?

Now, this is going to have 110 horsepower,

so exactly the same as the original Golf GTI.

It's smaller than an original Golf GTI, it weighs less than a tonne.

I reckon that will be epic and it's £13,000!

No, I think that could be brilliant.

So if you have ordered a new car for later this year,

S Class, Lamborghini, whatever it is, cancel your order.

-You want one of those.

-You do. That is going to...

I can't wait to drive that.

-There is another version of the Mini, yet another.

-Not another!

Another one. We needed one in 20 minutes.

It's out, this month it's on sale. It's called the Paceman, here it is.

HIGH-PITCHED: Oh, look at it! It's so miserable! Its little face!

I saw one coming the other way, coming into work the other day,

and it just looked so catastrophically sad.

"Morning, it's all awful!

"I hate being a Mini!

"I have to sleep outside and a dog weed on my wheel last night.

"All the big cars steal my petrol money." Look at it!

Hammond, do that face again. You do look incredibly like it!

You do look like the...

LAUGHTER

It's so depressing! Why have they done that?

Hey, bad news.

You know when the Tories came to power they said

-they were going to up the motorway speed limit to 80?

-Yeah.

Well, the new Transport Secretary who's called something dreary -

-Patrick McLoughlin - has had a rethink.

-Oh, God.

No, he says that he's unlikely to up it to

80 because in his constituency there's a very bad road where a lot of people get hurt.

Yeah, this is quite interesting, isn't it?

His constituency is the Derbyshire Dales

and we had a look at a map and there are no motorways there.

What this means, ladies and gentlemen,

is our Transport Secretary in Great Britain

doesn't know what a motorway is.

The man is a blithering idiot.

No, but in all seriousness, you can't really have a Minister

for Transport who isn't interested in, for example, cars and roads.

It'd be like making you the Governor of the Bank Of England.

-Don't do that.

-No, cos he's not interested in the economy.

-No, but I could sort it out.

-How?

Well, I could sort out the budget deficit.

Well, I'd find out how much it was

and then I'd write a cheque for that amount from the Bank Of England.

He probably has a point! That could do it.

-Well, maybe he should...

-That's economics covered.

I'd also have minted a £9.99 note to make life easier for shopkeepers.

Can I just say, actually, changing the motorway speed limit

to 80 miles an hour

wouldn't actually make a blind bit of difference, would it?

Because everybody in the outside lane of the motorway is doing 95.

They are. No, they are. People go, "Everyone does 80 on the motorway,"

and they don't, they're doing 95 in the outside.

So all an 80-mph speed limit would do

is reduce the income from speeding fines,

cos you're only going to be doing 15 miles an hour over the limit

-rather than 25.

-The fact is

that on a weekday afternoon - I'm not talking about weekends

when the roads are clogged up with people in Peugeots

going to B&Q to buy more hideous decking.

I'm talking about a weekday afternoon,

Britain has the best standard of driving

you'll find anywhere in the world.

-You're right. I would agree with that.

-It's a big claim.

Is it? Right, let's run through the opposition, shall we?

The Germans all do 150 on the autobahn

-that far behind the car in front.

-They do.

-The Italians are mad.

The French can't get to the grocer's without crashing into a field.

The Americans are belligerent, the Australians are drunk,

the rest of the world hasn't got the hang of it yet.

LAUGHTER

No, I'll... Yeah.

We are just the best, and that's an end of it.

Ladies and gentlemen, this morning, Richard Hammond was late for work.

-Oh, I'm sorry! I know!

-I arrived at 8:07.

You got there at 8:10. You arrived at 10:47.

-Yes. I'm sorry.

-10 to 11 when you arrived.

-I'm sorry I was late for school!

-And this was good news

because, while we were waiting for you to rock up, James and I

talked about the enormous success we had last week playing car rugby.

-Exactly.

-And I think it was a great success, and we were thinking,

-"Are there any other sports you can play in a car?"

-Were you?

Now, you were so late, we decided to go out onto the track to see

if you can play tennis in a car.

-You can't.

-You can't?

-No.

-Really?

Well, we had a couple of cameramen out there,

so let's just find out, shall we?

Here we go. This is how we filled our morning.

Serve!

Here we go, this is a good one.

Whoa-ho!

That's a great shot! Yes!

APPLAUSE

What? It works!

I know, it does. You can play tennis in cars,

with a bit of editing!

Little bit of editing. It did work really well, though.

-And it was really good fun.

-Well, I'm sorry I missed it.

Now, moving on, sometimes it seems

like the motor industry is a little bit like the film business.

Occasionally you get low-budget indies like the Ariel Atom.

Sometimes you get a quirky, offbeat foreign-language production.

That'd be a Saab.

And then occasionally, you get a big, huge-budget blockbuster,

such as this.

Welcome, everyone, to the new Range Rover.

And when I say new,

I really mean new.

This body shell, for example, still looks pretty much like a Range Rover

but it's been totally redesigned from scratch

and made from aluminium,

and that saves a whopping 400 kilograms of weight.

And that's just the start of it.

It has a new active suspension system, so it no longer rolls around

like a torpedoed frigate when you go round the bends.

It has new electric power steering,

it has a new, very clever eight-speed gearbox.

Inside, half of the switches and buttons have been ditched

to create this more minimalist dashboard.

There are also four inches of extra legroom in the back,

and you no longer have to burn any calories opening the tailgate.

On the road, it feels more luxurious than ever.

The ride is really very good,

quite Rolls-Royce-like.

However, all these improvements come at a price,

because even the cheapest version, a V6 diesel, costs £71,000

and the supercharged V8 model is almost £100,000.

That's Mercedes S-class money.

But then, the Range Rover has long been a Mercedes S-class rival

and this new one is equally at home

on the expensive bits of the Monopoly board.

Thing is, though, previous Range Rovers have always been about

a bit more than just poncing around a nice big city.

They've always been formidable adventure cars,

great off-roaders, pioneers, in a way.

So what I think we'll do now is, we'll drive out of London...

..and into this place.

The Nevada Automotive Test Centre

in Nevada.

This vast 1,200-square-mile proving ground

is where the original Hummer was developed,

making it the perfect place

to find out whether Lord Snooty can still get his shoes dirty.

To spice things up a bit,

we're going to give the Range Rover some competition.

So now, obviously, you're expecting me

to introduce a redneck in a massively modified jeep.

But no. We can do better than that.

And we have. And here he comes now.

Though when I say "he", what I really mean is "it".

Bloody Nora.

Meet the TerraMax.

It has six-wheel drive, tyres the size of Ferris wheels,

the ability to drive almost anywhere

and, as you've just seen,

nobody in the driver's seat.

It's an autonomous vehicle.

This thing can go on patrol, deliver supplies,

and all without any risk of soldiers being blown up by IEDs.

Here's basically how it works.

Up on the roof, there's a thing called LIDAR,

which is 64 separate lasers spinning round and round very quickly

and reading the terrain.

The information that comes back is interpreted by the computer on board

that decides where it should go

and then operates the steering, the brakes, the engine and so on.

And what it sees is this.

Anything that comes up green is basically no problem.

It's vegetation, that sort of thing.

Anything that comes up in various shades of red

is more of an obstacle, so a big rock, a tree, a wall, a cliff face,

all that sort of thing.

Look at that!

That's really quite amazing.

But the big question is,

can it beat a car built by Brummies

and driven by me?

What we're going to do is have a race

from here to that hilltop over there,

a distance of about ten miles.

Between us and the finish line lay many off-road challenges,

including rocky ground, steep slopes,

cloying mud and icy rivers.

And there would be no pre-planned route.

The Range Rover and I would have to adapt as we went along.

ENGINES RUMBLE

It's man versus machine,

quite literally.

Three!

Hang on!

I suppose it has a mind of its own, doesn't it?

It's May versus Schwarzenegger!

In truth, the jump start didn't really matter

because I was on standard road tyres

and this path was so craggy, he was always going to be faster anyway.

Look at the size of the tyres on that thing.

Ah, God, he's miles in front.

Right, if you're thinking of placing a bet on this at home,

here are the odds. Team Terminator, with the TerraMax,

they can go over terrain that I can't manage,

and the boffins who built it

have programmed satellite maps of the whole area into its brain.

So it already has a pretty good idea of where to go.

And if they want, they can take control of it remotely,

like a drone.

Team Top Gear, with the Range Rover,

you have me, possibly the greatest off-road vehicle in the world,

and higher speed.

I also have Land Rover's Terrain Response system,

which allows you to select different settings for the car

depending on the type of surface you're on.

But there is a new feature -

you can now push the knob down

and it goes into automatic mode,

and then the car will work out for itself, believe it or not,

what sort of terrain you're on,

what ride height you need, all the rest of it.

Right now, though, it was speed I needed,

and with these tyres on this terrain I wasn't getting any.

God above!

That looks like a short cut.

That is a short cut. I'll miss this.

The short cut was a steep, slippery slope.

Right, hill descent.

Here we go.

Whoa!

Whoa, that's steep.

I'm losing it! No, I'm not!

Whoa-ho!

Oh, God, he's there.

And sure enough...

Yes! Take that, Robocop!

And things could only get better

because ahead of me lay a fast, sandy track.

Wahey!

This is the 510-horsepower supercharged Range Rover.

You'd be mad to buy this in Britain. It's so thirsty!

Makes sense out here, though, and it makes sense doing this.

I've no idea where Robocop is.

But he ain't going as fast as this.

Sadly, Robocop didn't need to,

because the boffins back at base switched to drone mode,

remotely deflated the tyres for better grip in tricky conditions

and ordered it to take a short cut of its own,

over even rougher ground.

Wahey!

Back on the sand track,

I was at least reaping the benefits

of the Range Rover's 400-kilogram diet.

Hang on, a quick downshift to the sandy hairpin.

Look at that, it's beautiful!

But the TerraMax's shortcut had put it ahead

and now the terrain was even more in its favour.

That thing's not going fast, but it is utterly relentless. It just goes.

Moments later,

I arrived at the ridge the TerraMax had just climbed.

Holy moly!

What the hell, here we go.

Geronimo!

Whoa!

Did you see that?

That is just... That is astounding!

Meanwhile, the TerraMax was surging ahead.

And once it had crossed the river

it could hit its top speed of 35 miles an hour,

which meant I had to push even harder.

Whoa, that's deep.

Whoa, that's getting a bit dicey!

Whoa!

Whoa-ho!

It really is astonishing, this thing.

Let's hear you cheering, Birmingham.

Here we go. This will wade up to 36 inches, this car.

That's more than a Land Rover Defender,

more than the old car would. The air intakes have been moved up

to the top of the bonnet, so the water doesn't get in the engine.

If there's no holes in the river,

I'm across! Yes!

Back on smooth ground, I could now close down the TerraMax.

Where is he?

No sign of the metal BLEEP.

Actually, the driverless swine

was starting its ascent of the final hill.

There's Arnie! I'm on his six.

Now, I could follow that thing, then just try and overtake

at the last minute in a rush to the finish line,

but I don't think that will work, to be honest,

cos it's just going to end up somewhere where I can't go.

On the map, Arnie's route was shorter

but also clearly steeper,

so I went for a longer, shallower track.

Here we go. And it's smooth and good.

That's where I'm going. I can see a whiff of the orange smoke.

Heh-heh! This is excellent.

Lost sight of Arnie.

Absolutely no idea where it is.

Whilst Arnie ploughed relentlessly upwards,

my gamble started to backfire.

This is getting tricky. Ah! Calm down, man.

Jeez, it's getting worse.

I'm sorry, I really can't do it much faster than this.

I'll just pull a tyre off or smack something, then it will be over.

The summit was now just half a mile away.

He could be just the other side of that rise.

I just... I've got no way of knowing.

There's the orange smoke.

Here we go, here we go.

Here's the chequered flag! And...

No TerraMax!

Yes! Ha-ha!

I thank you!

How about that? An intelligent machine driven by a computer

has been beaten by the intelligent machine driven by a human being,

which is exactly as it should be, of course.

We...are still the most important component in a car,

and if we weren't, we'd all be doomed!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Why...

Why can't you walk on slippery surfaces?

-I don't like low traction.

-Yeah, but why do you need traction? It's you.

You're not moving quickly or changing direction suddenly, are you?

No, and the other thing is,

I think I could have done the Range Rover test a bit more quickly.

-Really?

-No, you could. All you have to say is,

at the front there's too much bling,

at the back the boot is too small,

and everything in between is utterly, utterly outstanding.

You could have added that because it's so much lighter

than the previous model, it's much more economical.

Yeah. There we are, we've covered everything.

Anyway, it's now time to put a star in our reasonably priced car.

Now, my guest tonight likes bikes and is incredibly tiny.

-Oh, is it me?!

-Have you ever seen Keira Knightley naked?

-Yes.

-Really?

-No.

-Well, he has, and he's kissed Angelina Jolie.

-Oh, I've done that!

-No, you haven't.

-In my mind.

Ladies and gentlemen, James McAvoy!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-How are you?

-Good.

-Nice to see you.

-Thank you very much.

Have a seat.

So Atonement, Last King Of Scotland, X-Men, and now you crown it all.

-The Bill. I was in The Bill.

-The Bill, as well?

-I was in The Bill.

You don't crown that, but this is Top Gear - second best to The Bill.

Yes!

Now, the guests we've had recently - Mick Fleetwood, Amy Macdonald -

-really quite good car histories. Yours is shocking.

-Is it? OK.

I think you're the first man we've ever had sit in that seat

-who once owned a Nissan Micra.

-Oh!

Listen, I was very proud of that car and I have to say,

that car was not even one litre and it went like the clappers!

-It didn't.

-It did.

-Oh, no!

No, no, because you moved from that to something not much better.

It was called a Renault Clio.

-And it was a 1.2.

-LAUGHTER

Five door, my friend!

-And it had a fantastic heating system.

-Did it?

It did, it warmed up very quickly, much warmer than my new car,

which is an Audi Q3 now.

I actually said the other day, it's the dreariest car in the world.

-But anyway, let's gloss over that.

-Right, go.

Because the problem you had is you didn't pass your driving test

-till really quite recently.

-I passed it about four years ago.

I first took my driving test for a TV show called State Of Play

and then failed.

So I just thought, "To hell with it," and I started riding motorbikes

and then four years ago I was having a baby

so I thought I'd better learn how to drive and I finally passed my test.

I was just thinking, there was a Channel 4 thing

-called Shameless you were in.

-Mm.

You drove in that, I'm sure you drove.

-I played a car thief in that and I have to say...

-LAUGHTER

I have to say, that Channel 4 never once asked me

for a driver's licence, so how they got insurance, I don't know!

Now, you say you were into bikes before cars,

so what was your first bike?

-My first bike was not really a bike, my first bike was a Vespa.

-Oh, God!

It was a scooter.

I drove one of those all the way across Vietnam

-and they are death traps.

-Right.

-Did you fall off yours?

I did fall off mine.

Within...28 hours of owning one for the first time,

I found myself illegally, by accident, on the North Circular.

I was at...you know those big roundabout junctions

you get on the North Circular, with a guy in a Maserati behind me,

revving his engine and beeping me

because he was angry that I was on the North Circular.

I thought, "I'm trying to get off - give me a break."

So the lights go green and I was under so much pressure

that I revved off too quickly

and, going round a corner, you know you get all that dust

and gravel at the edge, I went into it.

The thing span away from me and went about 30 feet down the road

-and that was my second day as a biker, so...

-That was...

Cos I can remember once, being in a Maserati on the North Circular...

LAUGHTER

-No, I'll gloss over that.

-A green Vespa, yeah?

-Anyway, your new film, which I went to see last night.

-Right.

-It's good.

-Thanks very much, cheers.

-Good!

-Yeah, we're very proud of it.

It's called Welcome To The Punch.

We have a clip, which I'd like to show for you now.

Sternwood!

Can we just take a step back for a minute?

Max is an inch away from piecing all this together.

Move! Go!

We'll end this tonight.

And when it's over, you'll go to prison.

Why don't we let off some fireworks while we're at it?

That is properly good.

I really did enjoy that, but a couple of questions from that.

Number one - that's an Alpha 159 you're driving.

Did you not think when you were driving that,

"This is better than my Audi Q3"?

I didn't have an Audi Q3 at the time,

-I think I had a Citroen C3 Picasso.

-Ugh!

-LAUGHTER

-This gets worse!

The other thing I noticed in that is your beard, which you still have.

-Now, this is because you're in...

-Macbeth. I'm trans-gingered.

-Were you surprised when you grew it and it was orange?

-Er...

LAUGHTER

-You know, your hair's not orange.

-And I'm not orange down there.

-You're not orange there?

-People ask me do I dye my top, but I don't.

So do you know why it's orange? Was it disappointing to be orange?

I don't know why it's red, but I dig it, I like it.

-I don't need a comment, but I like it.

-I'm...

I'm fine with an orange beard.

LAUGHTER

Erm, now, I believe it was Michael Fassbender,

a former guest here, who suggested we should contact you to get you on

-cos he said you'd love it.

-I would love it, yeah.

-And did you?

-I did love it.

-He's been your driving partner, hasn't he?

He's been... We would operate... I don't know what you'd call it,

but you know when you get the motorbikes with the sidecar racing

and you get the guy on the side doing the counterbalance?

We would do that for each other, taking it in turns,

on a golf buggy... erm, when we made X-Men.

Our golf buggy was, thankfully, restricted,

but we got into our director's golf buggy one day, unknowingly,

which had been de-restricted and I think it went the grand total

of 17 miles an hour or something like that.

Anyway, I was driving, Michael was in the back doing counterbalance,

and I'm here, passenger seat here.

There's a seat here, passenger bit,

then another passenger bit there and then a little footplate here.

He's on the footplate, hanging on, going like that

when I'm going that way, all this kind of thing.

He gave me such good counterbalance,

it just flipped, and when it sort of landed again

it caught so much traction that we just launched forward.

We were going too fast. Anyway, we launched into the back of a Lexus.

-And, erm...

-LAUGHTER

And I flew forward, smacked my face off the windscreen

and the next thing I knew I was about 15 feet

away from the actual golf buggy, lying on the ground.

I looked up and Michael had somehow managed,

with a roof and two passenger seats, then the driver's seat there,

had managed to fly forward

and he was sitting in the driver's seat, just looking...

And his shins were like Niagara Falls of blood.

He was just cut to shribbons.

There's something about a golf buggy which is...

They should never be used for golf, totally wasted!

Anyway, listen, if I'm honest with you,

when I heard that you were able to come on, I was very excited.

I thought, "He's only been driving 25 minutes,

"there's no way he's going to be any good."

So are we ready to see if he was or not?

-AUDIENCE: Yeah!

-Let's play the lap!

TYRES SQUEAL

Right, here we go. Drumchapel, this is for you.

HE CLEARS HIS THROAT

Clear your throat. The mighty Kia Cee'd.

Did you get the corner right?

Looking good.

TYRES SQUEAL

A lot of tortured tyres, but we're through safely.

-Dirty little Kia!

-LAUGHTER

It's only cos you had a few offs in practice that it's dirty.

It's a clean, legs-together sort of car.

-Why do I keep checking my

-BLEEP

-rear-view mirror?

There's nobody there anyway...except my dust!

You would be amazed how many people do that - mirror, signal, manoeuvre.

It looks much slower than it felt.

Yeah, no, it's awful, that, but the slower it looks, sometimes,

the faster you are.

Come on, come on, come on.

Argh, you end up speaking like in a movie, it's ridiculous.

"Come on, come on, come on." Listen to me.

You've got to talk to them.

They look like machines, but they're not really. Close to the tyres?

Oh, yes, that was close! Lewis Hamilton close!

Wobbled the camera. Second-to-last corner, two bites at the cherry.

Yes, but through and not off,

and that's good and now we come back to Gambon...

A lot of understeer... Oh, my god!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

-Which way did you end up facing?

-Straight, I went straight on.

-The car was completely...

-Yeah, but I got it back, though.

-You got it back?!

-Yeah.

-You must be a hell of a quick learner

cos for someone who's only been driving for, well,

not very long, to be able to... It didn't look too bad at all.

It was great fun. Thank you so much for letting me have a go.

-Oh, man, it was fantastic!

-I don't need to know my time!

LAUGHTER

Right, so where do you think that you came?

I think I should have got...

about 1.43 probably and I kept messing up

one of the turns in particular, so I think I've got about 1.45.

-Well, I like your ambition!

-Thanks very much.

It is ambitious! So you're thinking 1.45 somewhere.

Well, you did it, James McAvoy, in...

..one...

..forty...

..three...

-point six! You made your goal!

-Oh!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Look at that!

-Oh!

-That's brilliant!

-I cannot believe that!

Oh, my God, I actually didn't do too badly!

He's actually breathing a sigh of relief, cos I don't think

he would have wanted you to go faster. Fassbender is...

That's a genuinely pleased man!

I'm really, really pleased because I've had the premonition of me

going round the track

and I've always thought I'd flip the car, I'd roll it badly

and, erm, so I really did believe

that I'd be down in the bottom quarter.

-Well, you're not.

-Yes!

-Ladies and gentlemen, James McAvoy!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now, the population of Britain is getting older

and yet cars seem to be getting more and more complicated

and fiddly, which is why, earlier on, Jeremy

and I decided to make a car specifically for old people.

And now it's time to test it on the road.

The location for this maiden voyage was Christchurch,

the south-coast town with a larger percentage of elderly

residents than anywhere else in Britain.

It's the perfect place, then, to test our new car.

Now, listen, I've got a couple of questions for you.

First of all, this.

SQUEAKING Yeah.

Underneath the brake pedal, I've fitted one of these...

-BALL SQUEAKS ..so you know which pedal you're hitting.

-Oh, I see!

So there's no chance of unintended acceleration.

Yeah, that's a big problem solved.

-Am I pushing the right pedal?

-SQUEAK!

Yes, I am! There's an audible reminder! That's brilliant!

-Not only that, but the nature of the noise...

-Yes, it's funny.

When it comes to cadence braking...

SQUEAKY-SQUEAKY-SQUEAK! Oh, that is lovely!

Cos a cadence-braking situation is a panic situation,

but that sprinkles some comedy into it.

SQUEAK!

And then the next one I've got, really, is this.

Well, I've been thorough here and addressed all the senses, look.

-Magnifying glass.

-Let's have a look.

Oooh!

'Of course, the main improvement we'd made

'was the new easy-to-use dashboard.'

Hammond, would you like to set the sat nav, please?

Yep, we have a choice of four destinations -

-home, post office, Peggy's house or bingo.

-Yes, we do.

-What do you fancy?

-A bit of bingo?

-I fancy a bit of bingo.

-A bit of bingo.

-It's in.

-There you go.

-SQUEAK!

-OLD MAN:

-You have selected bingo.

If you wouldn't mind turning left, that would be smashing.

You see, now that's what I call a sat-nav instruction!

It's so much better than the German ones.

GO LEFT AT ZE NEXT ROUNDABOUT OR YOU WILL BE SHOT!

-Who wants to be told by a German where to go?

-I know!

-Or a young German.

-Well, that!

Continue straight on. This area was bombed during the war, you know.

-Oh, you see!

-Those are the details you want. War, rationing...

'Next we tested my new speedometer.'

Taking it up to five!

Seven.

Nine miles an hour!

And into fourth.

-Go straight on.

-Ten!

'But then...disaster.'

BANG!

-It's gone!

-What?

-The cat!

-No!

'The cat had not fared well.' It's dead!

-'Then a young policeman arrived.'

-Where was the cat before?

-There, but...

-Is it your cat?

-It's dead.

-And its name?

-Tiddles.

-Dead.

-Tiddles?

-Ex-cat.

After giving the cat a decent burial...

..we reached the bingo hall...

-SAT NAV:

-You have arrived! Lovely!

..and went off to find a parking space.

Right, there's one, look, next to that Focus.

SQUEAK!

-Are you shuffling the wheel?

-Yes.

These are lovely crashers.

No damage whatsoever to any vehicle in this car park.

Three and six, 36.

-We expected bingo to be very relaxing.

-Eight and one, 81.

-But it wasn't.

-Two and one, 21.

-I've never concentrated so hard in my life.

-Two and eight, 28.

-Oh!

-I'm literally wetting myself!

-One and five, 15.

-It's coming out!

-All the sixes, 66.

-Oh! Say 86!

-Six and five, 65.

-Yes!

-Oh, boll...!

'Even though we'd lost 17 shillings, we'd had a great time.'

-Exciting!

-Was it ever?!

'But afterwards there was an issue.'

Now, Jeremy, can I ask you a question?

-Can you remember where we parked our car?

-No, Richard, I can't.

This is a common problem, and not just for the elderly,

which is why, you may have noticed, on top of our car was a box.

In that box is a special feature that I can activate

if I press this button on the key fob.

There it is!

You see, this activates a flare

and we now know to head in that direction.

Very quickly, we found the correct car park,

but we still couldn't find the car.

You're the height of most elderly people.

-Can you see our car in this car park?

-No. No, I can't.

And that's why, if I press this button...

WHIRRING

You see?

So it's brilliant - the flare guides us to the rough position

and the balloon takes us to the precise location of the car.

'Having wound in the balloon locator system,

'we decided to find out how our car would go down with some

'actual old people, so we set off to an old people's home.'

Turn right at the newfangled mini roundabout.

'And on the way, I showed Hammond another of my special features.'

Now, the radio, Hammond - just one station.

MUSIC: "Horse Of The Year Show" theme

It's the music from the Horse Of The Year Show

-and old people love that cos you can clap along to it.

-Very nice.

-It doesn't tune in to any other stations?

-No, that's it.

It plays it on a loop constantly. Why do you want anything else?

What if you get in your car after your children have been

driving it and they've left it tuned to Radio 1?!

Or worse still, Radio 2 and that talk-show man who does...

-Jeremy Vine.

-There you go.

Those difficult topics - they're unsuitable.

-What, like pregnancy?

-Exactly!

'However, there was a problem.'

MUSIC CONTINUES, RHYTHMIC CLAPPING

-I can't stop clapping!

-I can't stop clapping.

-This is a massive design fault!

-This isn't safe! Turn it off!

'Eventually, we arrived at the old people's home...'

SQUEAK!

-SAT NAV:

-Well done, that was lovely.

'..and went to find the testing team.'

-So you're Miriam?

-I am, yes.

-And you're Betty?

-Yes.

-I'm Barbara.

-You're Barbara. And this is the car that...

-What is she called?

-This is The James.

-It's called The James.

-James?

-The James.

-A Rover James.

-Oh, it's a Rover, yes?

-First impressions?

-What do we think?

-It's wonderful!

This material is waterproof.

-Oh, good!

-So if there's any little accidents...

-Yes!

-..don't you worry.

'However, there was an issue with the Shackleton rear seating.'

-Have you got a hoist?

-That bit there...

See, in the advert for the chairs,

we were told they were very easy to get into and out of.

-Get me bottom round.

-Shall we get a nurse to do this?

-No, I'll do it if it kills me!

-Well, we'd rather it didn't!

-I was going to say...

-There's a lot of paperwork.

-I'm so sorry.

-Can I help?

-We're there! We're there!

-Hooray!

-Well done!

-With both our dignity nearly intact!

Lovely.

'With the testing team on board, we set off to the bowls club.'

-SAT NAV:

-Don't overdo it, not with your back.

Look at the speed we're going now - three miles an hour, as you can see.

Oh, isn't this absolute fun?

-SQUEAK!

-'Soon, we reached our destination.'

-Here we are, ladies, at the bowling club.

-Ooh, lovely!

'And Hammond insisted I show off his new parking sensors.'

BEEPING Keep going.

FASTER BEEPING Keep going.

-FASTER BEEPING

-You know there's no bumper on the back?

Just keep backing up. BEEPING

Ignore the noise, pretend you can't hear it.

BANG!

What did he hit?

-External rear-mounted airbag!

-But...

-Genius!

Excuse me a minute.

Three quite elderly ladies in there have now all had heart attacks.

-There is that.

-Ladies, I do apologise for that.

-When have you ever experienced banging like that?

-The war.

When the bombs dropped.

You're saying that because these ladies lived through the war

-they're capable of dealing with a bang of that nature?

-Yes.

Leaving the ladies to play bowls, we went off to buy food for a picnic.

What about Battenberg, or is that too German?

It is too German, isn't it?

JEREMY CLEARS HIS THROAT

-Sandwich spread!

-Potted meat!

-Beef spread.

They must have ginger beer in Christchurch.

-Ginger beer's a bit racy, don't you think?

-No! They love it.

Enid Blyton used to rub herself with it. There it is.

-Peruvian, Greek, Brazilian...

-Holland.

-Dutch.

-Grown in the UK!

'With the shopping finished,

'it was time to demonstrate yet another feature of The James.'

-If you've got osteoporosis, arthritis, lumbago...

-Or rheumatism.

..or rheumatism, then lifting your heavy shopping into the boot

can be, well, very difficult indeed.

But with this genius solution, not a problem.

Bring the trolley up to the back - that's easy. Lift, drop in, job done.

How brilliant is that?!

'Having picked the ladies up, we set off for our picnic.'

SQUEAK!

Where did you get that mouse from?

It's a squeaky ball he's got underneath the brake.

SQUEAK!

'Sadly, because it was an English summer's day,

'it soon started to rain, which revealed a bit of a design flaw.'

-Oh! Whoa, whoa, whoa!

-Oh, no, no, no! What's happened here?

Ugh, that's a lot of water coming in now.

This is a disaster that we've had, Hammond!

I think some of our modifications

have interfered with the waterproofing.

Is it all on you, dear? It's all a stream down there.

-Look at this spirit of the Blitz going on.

-I know.

-This is what makes us great.

-The Americans would be weeping now.

-They'd be making a fuss.

-But what good would that do?

-Nothing!

'And we had just the thing to raise our spirits even more.'

MUSIC: "Horse Of The Year Show" theme

-You can't help it.

-You can't, can you?

Oh, no - the constabulary.

Oh, not again!

Sorry, officers! Nothing to see here!

'Eventually we arrived at exactly

'the sort of picnic spot elderly people love.'

BEEPING, CRUNCH

-There we go. Shall we pop it just here?

-Yeah.

Look at that for a sunset picnic.

'Having rescued what we could from the ruined shopping trolley...'

-Mr Kipling, bread...

-This is all soaked!

'..we settled down to do what all old people do

'when they're on a picnic together.'

'The next morning we left Christchurch,

'generally quite pleased with how things had gone.'

-Oh, what?!

-Leaking again!

There are a few things we need to address - there's the waterproofing,

obviously, the Shackleton easy chairs that aren't,

as it turns out, so easy to get in and out of, you know.

-The irresistible clapping machine.

-Yeah. Er...

Hold on, if we carry on along here, we'll have to get on the motorway.

Yes, I know, and that will give us

-the opportunity to test a feature that I fitted.

-What?

Well, you know you're always reading in the newspapers about

-an old person who's driven 30 miles the wrong way down the M1?

-Yeah.

-Well, I've fitted something that will stop that happening.

-How?

Well, no, look, you see here it's not clearly marked,

it's easy to go the wrong way down that slip road.

-I just did.

-Exactly!

Watch this - here we go.

KLAXON BLARES

Oh, I see! That's clever, that's good.

But if I miss the signs, I could just as easily miss all this.

-Yeah, OK, keep going.

-Oh, this is going to be...

-Keep going!

-KLAXON CONTINUES

-There you go!

-You idiot!

-What?!

-Well, it's ruined!

Yes, but it can't go on the motorway going the wrong way.

No, we can't GO anywhere because you've exploded the car!

We're alive, everybody on that motorway is alive,

this is the best solution ever.

I've wet myself again!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you, ladies! What?!

I knew you'd have something to say about it. What?

-I think you've overdone it.

-What on this is overdone?

That heater - that's too complicated.

I said that - you don't need a button for hot and a button for cold,

you just need one that says, "Just right."

No, no, let's not get bogged down with details cos I think it's more

important we express our appreciation

for the man who provided us

with the voice for our satellite navigation system because it was

the lovely Richard Briers, who sadly died just last week, so thank you.

-Honour to have met him.

-It was. Honour to have met him.

Anyway, next week... it is our Christmas special!

-It's hardly Christmas, is it?

-Not really.

-It is if you're watching this on Dave in 2016.

-Good point!

Anyway, it's us in three very cheap estate cars, plunging around

in the heart of Africa looking for the source of the River Nile.

Now, it is in two parts. This is quite simple.

Part one is on next Sunday, part two, the week after that.

Yep, and they are both worth a watch

-because we do quite literally rewrite history.

-We do indeed.

And, on that bombshell, time to end. Thanks for watching.

See you next week. Good night!