Episode 4 Top Gear

Tonight...

I sit on a rock...

James gets something in his eye...

Oh!

And Richard says, "Mummy!"

Oh, Mummy!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you, hello!

Hello, good evening, thank you so much.

Thank you, now...

Now, tonight's show...

Tonight's show is interesting

because we have all sort of reverted to type.

Later on, Hammond is in the desert driving like an idiot

in a large and flamboyant off-roader.

I'm in northern Italy driving a rather elegant sports car

and James, well actually, we are kicking off with James,

who really is in his comfort zone

because he is on a Second World War air base

talking about a car from the 1950s.

This is The Stig taking a Caterham to the ragged edge

on our track back in 2008.

That particular lap is something of an internet sensation.

It's been viewed over 100 times

and one of the reasons it's so popular is

because that is the Caterham R500,

the most powerful and extreme car they have ever built.

Or, rather, it was.

Because its crown has just been stolen by this.

The brand-new Caterham 620R.

Where the old 500 had 263hp,

this has 310.

And since it weighs just 545kg,

it has a better power to weight ratio than a Bugatti Veyron.

But I have driven a Bugatti Veyron

and I have to say it was very civilised.

Let's see how this compares.

ENGINE REVS

Oh!

Bloody Nora! Oh!

Argh!

Argh! Argh!

ENGINE DROWNS SPEECH

I can't see!

Oh! Ow!

BLEEP.

Argh!

God above, that's not...

That's not like acceleration,

that's like being in a football and somebody kicks it.

Ugh!

'With a helmet and goggles deputising for the windscreen,

'I tried once more to get to grips with the 620R.'

Obviously, you can tell from the way I'm screaming at you,

the racket in here is tremendous.

It's quite difficult to breathe.

'That's hardly surprising since 0-60 takes just 2.8 seconds.

'And it's not like you can get your breath back in the corners.'

TYRES SCREECH

-Geez.

-HE COUGHS

Right, this time, watch this.

TYRES SCREECH

Oh, not again. Sorry.

There'll be a lot of editing to do on this piece.

'Stick at it for several months and you can bring the 620R to heel.'

Whey, hey-hey!

I've done a whole circuit!

'And when you get your eye in, it's not a bad car.'

It's still a Caterham.

It's all very crisp. Very nice.

Fantastic sequential gearbox.

'It's just that it's too much hard work.'

The trouble is this is power piled on power.

It can barely contain itself.

It's like a teenager left alone with the internet.

The wheels and the suspension can only just

keep up with what's going on.

Whey-hey!

It's not supposed to be like this.

It's just a little sports car!

'However, I think I have an answer to the problem.'

You see, I think if you're going to build a minimalist car,

you need to take a minimalist approach to performance

and handling, as well.

It's no good just piling on more and more power,

that's like trying to improve a curry

by putting more and more chillies in it.

What I'm trying to say is, well,

Caterham needs to find a better Indian restaurant.

Fortunately it seems they're ahead of me on this one.

Alongside their new, most powerful car ever,

they've also come up with this,

their least powerful car ever.

It's called the 160

and it has just 80hp

from a tiny turbocharged three-cylinder Suzuki engine.

So the engine is much smaller but then so is the price.

The 620R is £50,000.

This is just £17,000.

Admittedly, 0-60 takes a gentle seven seconds

and the top speed is only 100.

But that's not the point.

Top speed, 0-60, they're just numbers.

They are meaningless in themselves.

What matters is whether or not they add up into a sensation

and this delivers a tremendous sensation.

TYRES SCREECH

HE CHUCKLES

The key to the 160's sense of fun is a set of super skinny tyres.

They are only a tiny bit wider than a space saver.

So you only have to twitch your foot a little bit...

TYRES SCREECH

..and you can slide around like Mika Hakkinen.

Oh, lovely! Look at me.

Whoo!

When you have worn your tyres out,

they're only 40 quid each to replace.

Even The Stig, who normally turns his snout up at anything

with less than 500hp, had an absolute ball.

It has a windscreen.

It'll do over 50 miles to the gallon.

As far as I'm concerned,

it's the best car Caterham has ever made.

In fact, there's only one thing wrong with it.

The way it looks.

Next to the latest stripped out sports cars like the Ariel Atom,

and the BAC Mono, it sits a bit like a typewriter

in an internet cafe.

I wonder if they could do something about that?

As it happens, they're ahead of me on that one, too.

This is the AeroSeven.

It's been developed with the help of the Caterham F1 team.

The great thing is, it isn't some static papier mache one-off

built for a motor show stand.

What do you think of this, then?

Positively down on gastrique by Caterham standards.

The next thing you know, they'll have a fax machine.

The AeroSeven isn't going into production for a year or so.

Before it does, there's one major thing they need to fix.

Ow!

Oh!

It hasn't got a windscreen!

Useless!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

The best car they've ever made?

-According to him, it is.

-Well...

The best car they've ever made?

Slowest...

So, James, er...

So you don't like cars without windscreens?

No, I hate cars without windscreens. That is the most idiotic idea

in the whole history of motoring, isn't it? What is the point?

What advantage is there of building a car without a windscreen?

You might as well have a snorkel mask with no glass in it and you get hit in the eyeball by fish.

-LAUGHTER

-It's that idiotic.

James, before you have an aneurysm, there are one or two points

that Hammond and I would like to make

about some of the things you said in that film.

Hammond, do you want to go first?

Yeah, four minutes and 58 seconds into your film,

whilst referring to acceleration figures,

you say, "They are just numbers, they're meaningless."

-They are.

-You would say that!

James, but a car that accelerates from 0-60 in 2.8 seconds

-is better than one that does it in seven seconds.

-No, what I was actually saying...

Also, at three minutes 51,

you say and I'm paraphrasing here, that giving it more power

-is like trying to improve a curry by adding more chillies.

-Mmm.

-That is how you improve a curry!

-No, it isn't.

-It is.

Remember the chicken curry from school,

it was screaming for more spice, it's what it needed is more.

Yes, then James at five minutes and 29 seconds,

you said you were sliding around like Mika Hakkinen.

-I was.

-Yes, but you see Mika Hakkinen is a Formula 1 driver

and they don't slide around.

Yeah, but when Mika Hakkinen took me out for a drive, he did slide around!

-Yes, but he's not known for sliding around.

-No, exactly.

He might collect porcelain frogs but you don't go around saying,

"I'm collecting porcelain frogs like Mika Hakkinen right now."

-It's not relevant.

-Exactly!

-Have you quite finished?

-Well, not really

because there's a lot to go through but,

sadly, we must now find out how fast these cars go round our track

and that, of course, means handing them

over to a man who can actually drive!

LAUGHTER

Some say that he once put Helen Mirren in a dishwasher.

LAUGHTER

And that at the Winter Olympics he was disqualified

from the skeleton event for riding down the hill on an actual skeleton.

LAUGHTER

All we know is he's called The Stig!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And they are off.

Ooh, it's a bit damp out there, that may slow them down a bit.

620R building up a command...

Oh, no, there was the other one coming into shot...

at the last moment.

First corner in, the 620R, he's handling that well.

No, still...

Yes, we just saw the other one.

And here he is, no music, obviously, to listen to today.

Just the sound of that

two-litre Ford Duratec engine,

supercharged in the 620R.

They don't use the 2.3 that they use and the BAC Mono.

Here he is at the back!

Cos it's too tall.

He is actually struggling to get the power down.

But he is getting it down.

Beautifully.

Right, Follow Through next.

Here he is, definitely lifting off.

This is a magnificent example of car control

from The Stig, in one of them at least!

The other one simply not there.

Right, just...

Oh, good God, look at that.

Nearly losing it at the exit of the Follow Through.

Handling it nicely coming through into Gambon.

Getting some opposite lock on before the corner

and across the line!

We just have to wait now for James's favourite car to finish.

"The best car Caterham have ever made"... there it goes.

LAUGHTER

Any minute now, it'll be across the line.

OK, talk among yourselves.

-And there it is!

-AUDIENCE CHEERS

APPLAUSE

Wet lap, so we're not expecting any records,

we certainly haven't got them.

Right the 620R, the car you didn't much like.

That did it in 1:22.3.

Similar conditions, similar time to the magnificent Lexus LFA. OK?

Now your favourite car...

Not quite so fast.

LAUGHTER

There's no other way of saying this,

it was a 1:45.5, so it's there.

It's actually five seconds slower than Morgan's wooden tricycle.

LAUGHTER

-Good.

-And that's your favourite car?

Of those two, yeah.

LAUGHTER

And now the news

and the news is that later on in this programme

Jeremy is going to try and prove to James and me

that cars are better than bikes.

-Well, that's because they are.

-Well, they're not.

Oh, yes, they are. They're warmer than bikes,

they stand up by themselves.

You don't have to wear rubber trousers.

They're faster.

-Not faster!

-They are round corners.

Well, not in a straight line.

Yes, you see, that's what I'm going to prove later on

that they are faster in a straight line.

-Really?

-Yes, I am.

-Really?

Yes, I am, but now we're going to do the proper news, OK?

Now you know all around the world there are museums for all

sorts of silly things. There's a pencil museum in, is it Cumbria?

-Yeah, it is.

-Yeah, a pencil museum.

There's an umbrella museum in Spain

and a museum of the vagina in Japan.

-There is a penis museum in Iceland.

-Been there.

It's very cold, all the exhibits are very small.

The reason I bring this up is because,

in America there is a Corvette Museum.

There's a photograph of it here.

Now, as we know, the Corvette enthusiast in America is quite...

-Heavy.

-Yes, they're bigger gentleman.

-Big-boned.

Well, one of them visited the museum this week and this happened.

LAUGHTER

-Must have been a big one!

-That was a big hole.

And apparently, eight cars fell into it.

There's a shot actually looking down. Look at that.

Oh, God, that's painful to see!

-Damage was estimated at 37.

-Was it?

-Was it?

-But actually, we shouldn't mock

because you know there was a sinkhole, which is what this is,

that opened on the M2 this week, did you see? On the central reservation?

They closed the motorway for 18 hours.

That, they kept the museum open. They did!

-Well, you can still see the cars.

-Yeah, you just...

I think we should applaud the Americans for that

because that's a good attitude to health and safety.

It is. Well done, you.

-Yes.

-Now, I've received a letter. May I just read it to you?

"Dear Mr Clarkson..." You're going to love this.

"I'm writing to you on behalf of the world-famous Madame Tussauds."

-Oh, they're not going to...

-Yes, they are!

-Oh, you're joking!

Oh, no!

They say I have been highly requested, highly requested,

to be immortalised in wax.

You sure that doesn't say immersed in wax?

No, immortalised in wax.

How are they going to immortalise you in wax?

Where are they going to get all the wax?

Presumably they'll have to melt down everything else

in Madame Tussauds, to make one massive hideous wax dummy...

of a hideous dummy.

It's easy, they just get a very big candle, they light it,

let it drip down the edges for a couple of hours,

then just draw a face on it with felt tip.

I want to see them sculpting it, cos imagine,

once they've melted down enough wax, which is a lot,

the size of the urn, it'll look like a scene from Lord Of The Rings!

With all these little orcs walking around the bottom,

getting ready... a big pour, to create this hideous, hideous,

grotesque, enormous thing! How are they going to fit it in?

No, don't put it there, put it in the Natural History Museum.

LAUGHTER

Better still...

Next to the big brontosaur!

Just a big skeleton.

Just a big skeleton next to the brontosaur,

a big tyrannosaurus- what-the-hell-is-that?

And then people can go and watch.

Ladies and gentlemen, the sound of bitterness and jealousy.

My colleagues, there. I wish I hadn't brought that up.

As you probably noticed last week,

a Danish supercar called the Zenvo came down here and caught fire.

A lot of people were very shocked by that but actually,

it's not unusual for expensive cars to catch fire

when they're first released.

Ferrari had a problem with the 458.

And then just this week,

we've been hearing about Porsche GT3 problems.

There's a shot here of one in... of one in Switzerland.

The internet is awash with rumours of other examples of this.

Porsche themselves admit it has happened in Italy as well.

And have now suspended deliveries of the new GT3 to customers.

Yeah, but what if you'd already taken delivery of your brand-new...

your brand-new and expensive GT3 that might catch fire at any moment?

Well, we really need to ask a customer,

don't we, who's just done that?

-Hammond!

-What?

-You've just had a GT3 delivered, haven't you?

Yes! HE LAUGHS

Shut up! Shut up, stop talking about it.

-Thank you, move on.

-It must be so depressing.

-Oh, God. Yes, it is.

To have worked so hard to buy your dream car

-that is then immediately valueless.

-Oh, God!

So to try and cheer you up, Hammond, I've bought you a small present.

Oh, have you? Thank you, I love your gifts.

We don't often buy each other presents on this show

but I've done just that today.

Mono... They're actually GT3 branded driving gloves.

Oven gloves.

Thank you.

Funny. Ha-ha-ha-ha(!)

And...

-Doesn't just stop there.

-Oh, please let it stop.

I think we need to coat your car

in the most fire retardant material known to man. Pizzas.

Oh, not your pizza theory! It's one of his stupid theories.

-Come on, Hammond, come with me.

-Really?

Now, this is your actual GT3.

Yes, it is, actually, yes.

We know this because there's a fireman standing next to it

-with an extinguisher in case it suddenly combusts.

-Good!

Now, what I'm planning on doing, OK,

is I'm going to take these pizzas, pop them on the car.

-And then apply a blowtorch.

-No! No, you're not, no, you're not!

I've seen you do this and you're not doing it to my car. No.

But the ladies and gentlemen want to see if pizza is...

-I don't care! Not to my car! No.

-Can we attach them to you?

-Well, if you must, yes.

-Right, well, first of all,

-we need to establish... James, can I borrow you?

-Yes.

First of all we need to establish that these are pizzas, OK?

Have a look.

You will see there's no asbestos in there,

-they're real pizzas. Yes?

-Yeah.

James, perhaps you'd like to just take a bite?

-Yes, let me just pull a piece off.

-Is that a pizza?

Tastes like the cardboard box it came in, so it must be.

There you go. So those are the pizzas.

If you'd like to attach those to Hammond, that would be tremendous.

-To his face?

-Um...

-His vegetables.

-OK.

-Oh, really?

Come on!

Oh, not... That's ambitious, mate.

That's by my knees!

Now, I'm going to fire up the blowtorch. There we go.

Oh, God, come on, no! This is ridiculous!

James, how hot is the tip of this flame?

Probably the best part of 800 degrees C. Enough to melt aluminium.

Enough to melt aluminium. This is a real blowtorch.

Look, I can demonstrate it.

Fire on there, you can actually

-see it burning the table nicely.

-Oh!

This is a real, well, two layers of pizza, and a real Richard Hammond.

Everybody ready?

-CROWD:

-Yes!

Wouldn't do it to him.

AUDIENCE GROANS

Oh, yes, I would!

AUDIENCE CHEERS

Oh, no!

HE YELLS

-Jeremy, that's quite a long time, isn't it?

-Not really.

-Stop it!

-I can smell burning sausage.

Is that alarming?

Can you see? Pizza.

-Pop it on your car.

-No!

Ladies and gentlemen, Hammond is still here.

APPLAUSE

Stupid, stupid.

That is...

I think that is a Top Gear hot tip.

We're going to move on.

Because, you see, in the olden days, when James was 43,

car makers would sell you a complete car like they do now.

Or they would sell you something like this -

an engine, a chassis, and some suspension.

And then you would take this to a coach-building company

who would then fit a personalised body, personalised interior,

you could have anything you wanted.

And in the '30s,

this meant there were some truly amazing creations.

Back then, there were coach-building companies all over the world,

helping the wealthy to fulfil their wildest dreams.

Anything was possible, and everything was done.

Coach building meant that Clark Gable didn't have to have

a car that looked like this.

It meant he could have one that looked like this.

Today, though, cars are built differently.

You don't get a chassis with a body on the top.

Because the body sort of is the chassis.

The pillars, the roof, the doorframes,

they're all load-bearing, so changing anything is a nightmare.

And this has meant that for many years,

coach building has been a lost art.

Now, though, I'm delighted to say...

it's back.

Welcome, everyone, to the Alfa Romeo Disco Volante.

One of the most striking, intelligent,

and unusual cars I've seen in a very long time.

It started out in life as an Alfa Romeo 8C.

But was totally re-bodied and re-upholstered

by an old coach building company in Milan called Touring.

In the '50s, they styled and built sports cars for Alfa Romeo.

Later, they designed the Aston Martin DB5 and DB6.

Along with the Jensen Interceptor,

and the very first Lamborghini -

the 350GT.

That is quite a CV.

In recent years, however, they've been reduced to making

mildly modified Bentleys and Maseratis.

It's been like watching Dame Judi Dench

reduced to appearing in a regional pantomime.

But now, they've decided to bring

the lost art of proper coach building back,

with the Disco Volante.

Certain structural and safety related things can't be changed.

The seat belt mounting points, the windscreen,

the suspension mounting points,

they'll be the same on this car as they are on this one.

It's like plastic surgery.

You can't change the skeleton, but you can change the flesh.

And that is what they've done.

But has it worked?

The simple answer is, yes.

It doesn't shake, it doesn't rattle.

It doesn't feel like botched plastic surgery.

You don't think every time you go over a bump,

"Oh, no, my nose is going to fall off."

Doesn't feel like Michael Jackson.

Do you know what it does feel? It feels...

solid.

It feels, and this is high praise for a hand-built car, it feels...

mass-produced.

That said, it does not feel like the car that spawned it.

It doesn't feel like an 8C.

That's because they've softened the suspension,

they've turned it from a stiff, B-road barnstormer

into a comfortable cruising machine, and I like that.

There are loads of cars built specifically to attack

a road like this.

So it's quite refreshing to find one

that allows you to savour it.

Savour the views, savour the moment.

So, it doesn't feel like an 8C.

And it certainly doesn't sound like one either.

Oh, it's the most...

..soulful-sounding car I think I've ever heard.

It's as though the entire exhaust system

is actually made out of Otis Redding.

# Left my home in Georgia... #

HE ROARS IN TUNE WITH ENGINE

GIGGLES

# Heading for the Frisco Bay... #

HE IMITATES ACCELERATING ENGINE GROWL

It's Otis!

Don't get me wrong, though.

This is not a slow car.

It has a 444 horsepower 4.7 litre Maserati V8.

Couple that to a super-light carbon fibre and aluminium body,

and you end up with a car that accelerates

like it's fallen off a cliff.

The top speed is 181.

Thing is, though, driving a car this exquisite, this elegant,

quickly, feels wrong.

It would be like pogo dancing to I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

No, no, no, you can't do that!

This, this kind of speed, this is where it's at its best. Half speed.

I don't even feel inclined to drive it fast.

I don't want to hang the tail out on the hairpins.

Just want to put it in auto, put some tunes on the stereo, like so.

Pop on a pair of sunglasses...

and slow on down.

And pretty soon, you'll want to stop altogether and get out.

Because looking at this car,

that's really what it's all about.

It's interesting how many elements from other things are in that shape.

I can see a little bit of Corvette, a bit of E-Type...

Then there's the, um...I think it was called the Discovery,

the spaceship in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

I see that at the front.

And I love the way they paint it gold

before they paint it red to make the colour richer.

Then there's the name - "Disco Volante" -

picked out in the seats.

I know, in Italian, Disco Volante means "flying saucer"

but to me, it's the name of Largo's hydrofoil

in the Bond film Thunderball.

I love that car.

I really do.

I think it really is time now

to bring out my special, "in love" face.

I was jealous of Hammond when he came out to Italy the other day

to drive the new Alfa 4C, because, to me,

that thing is special.

It's...it's the Angel Gabriel.

But I'm not jealous any more, because this...

This is the full baby Jesus.

I'm not going to say it's the best car in the world -

it certainly isn't the nicest to drive,

the brakes are spongy, you can see nothing out of the back.

But as a tool for making you feel special,

really, nothing gets close.

Nothing at all.

A Maserati heart, an Alfa Romeo badge,

exhausts made out of Otis Redding...

..and a hand-crafted body to die for.

That is one hell of a combination.

It really is.

APPLAUSE

No, no, no, no, no. No, don't...

Sorry.

-What?

-Hang on.

You were having a go at me earlier on

because I preferred the slow Caterham to the fast one.

-Mm-hm.

-And here you are, raving about a car

-that's happiest at half-speed?

-Well, yes.

You're an utter hypocrite.

No, no - you see, the thing is,

I'd prefer to drive to somebody's house in a Lexus LFA,

cos I like the power from that screaming V10 engine.

But I'd prefer to arrive in this,

because it's elegant, it's beautiful, it's handcrafted...

How much is it?

Uh... well, do you know, they won't tell me,

even when I lightly tortured them.

But I have heard there's a man in Singapore

paid £1.5 million for his.

Now, there are a lot of import taxes in Singapore - I mean, huge ones.

Even so, that's about 130...

That's still £600,000 for the car.

Yes, I know. And what's amazing is that, in Singapore,

you're not allowed to drive a left-hand drive car on the road.

So he's paid £1.5 million for a car he can't drive.

LAUGHTER

He's completely mad.

He isn't - somebody's just paid, what, £42 million

for a Francis Bacon painting.

You can't drive that, either.

It's not a car.

James, I haven't got time for your pedantry.

Because we have to now put a Star in our Reasonably Priced Car.

Now, my guest tonight is extremely funny,

but he can't drive.

So he is the exact opposite of Nigel Mansell.

LAUGHTER

Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Whitehall.

APPLAUSE

-How are you?

-Good, how are you?

-Look who's here!

-Hello.

-Hey.

-Have a seat.

-Oh...

-Ooh...

Do you know, I haven't seen you since you were in short trousers.

Yes, well, I mean, you know...

You were a big part of my childhood.

And that's not something that probably everyone in here knows.

Jeremy was a father at the prep school that I went to

and I have a lot of very vivid...

This is a big moment for me, being here, with you, cos...

-With long trousers.

-With long trousers on -

tight, long trousers.

But you were, like, the first kind of...real kind of,

silverback alpha male I'd ever set eyes on.

Every other father at the school that I went to

was, like, a blubbering-faced posh toff with a Barbour jacket.

Then you came striding across the sports field,

a vision in denim, like...

It was amazing - we were all like, "Oh, God, look at him!

"He probably eats his steak rare

-"and doesn't bother getting out of the bath to take a

-BLEEP."

LAUGHTER

Now... we get many guests down here who say, "Ooh, no, I can't drive."

And they mean, "I've never done any track driving

"and I'm not very confident and I'm not very good."

When we say you can't drive, we mean... you CAN'T drive.

No. No, I can't drive at all.

I... I mean, I've been in a car once, behind the wheel.

I've done passenger stuff loads of times, I'm amazing.

But the driving aspect, I've done, like, half a lesson?

My dad gave me half a lesson

and it became clear that it wasn't really a lesson -

he wanted a lift to the butchers.

So we drove down the road to the left,

he picked up a leg of lamb and we went home.

So that's the only lesson I ever had.

But I've never been behind the wheel of a car on my own ever before.

-So I thought it would be good to come and do it...

-Here?

Which, of course,

meant that we actually had to teach you to drive a car.

-Yeah.

-When I say, "we"...The Stig.

Yeah, I mean, he wasn't... he's not a great instructor.

He's not talkative, let's put it that way.

Um... well, we've actually got some footage

of Jack's first ever driving lesson in an actual...

Was it a manual?

I mean, did it have, like, a lever coming out there?

It had a pull-y thing and then three pedals.

Three pedals and a pull-y thing.

-This is known as a manual car.

-A manual car, yes.

Anybody like to see Jack's first ever driving lesson?

AUDIENCE: Yes!

Never, ever done this before. Here we go, let's have a look.

It should make a "vroom" noise, shouldn't it?

Do I... am I turning it the right way?

No? Right, OK, fine.

'Was he completely uncommunicative?'

He didn't even nod.

ENGINE REVS

Yes!

ENGINE STALLS

Stig, I might need a little bit more from you than this.

OK, right, so that's not working.

By process of elimination,

if we come off the clutch and press this...

ENGINE REVS LOUDLY

-Revving.

-Yeah, that's revving.

-Getting ready.

-And your handbrake's on.

-That sounds good.

No, it doesn't.

OK, this is getting better.

Oh, Jesus...

APPLAUSE

I mean, well done.

But we had to go from that to getting you round a lap

-in the space of an hour.

-I think my priorities were...

He didn't think that I was taking it seriously,

cos when I first got in the car - a perfectly valid thing,

it's the thing I always ask when I get in a car,

is whether he had an iPhone charger.

Because mine had died and I wanted to get some photos of the journey

and he wasn't happy about that.

But he's so moody!

I asked him if there was a Mrs Stig and that didn't go down well.

-No, it wouldn't.

-That's what he needs -

maybe he's not getting enough of it at home.

I thought of the perfect person for The Stig as well -

match made in Heaven -

him and the woman who does the demonstrations on The Cube.

With the mask.

LAUGHTER

They would be perfect together!

APPLAUSE

What would the babies be like?

The babies would be amazing! You could do it as a challenge -

send them to the Isle of Fernando's!

Talking of The Stig not getting enough,

how, if you're a 17-year-old youth,

do you get any... at all from girls

if you can't drive them anywhere?

Yeah, it was hard. Especially when I became a stand-up

and it was like, stand-up, you're going around on tours,

quite rock'n'roll, there would be groupies and stuff,

but it's very hard to pull a groupie

when your mother has driven you to the gig.

Afterwards, you'd be like, "Yeah, you want to go back to my crib?

"My ride's outside, it's the Volvo just there.

"You'll have to sit in the back, cos I ride up front with Mummy.

"Hope you like The Archers!"

So when you're doing your gigs now,

presumably your mum doesn't take you around.

No - the best thing about this latest tour,

it's the biggest one I've done,

and I'm going to be in a tour bus, which is amazing.

Cos the worst thing, I find,

about doing a tour when you're in a car

is having to use petrol station toilets,

cos the lock on a petrol station toilet door

is always broken.

They're always bust, then you have to do that thing which we all do,

which I call "lavatory yoga"

where you work out how to keep the door with a broken lock shut.

Yeah.

There's three main schools of it - you've got the Tom Daley,

where you lean forward with the arms like that.

-Use the fingertips.

-Yeah.

-But I can't

-BLEEP

-unless I'm playing Candy Crush, so that doesn't work.

Then you've got the Bowing Monk,

where you put your head forward and just use it as a doorstop.

But someone can, like, knock you out

if they're too insistent on getting in.

Then your third option, which is the best one,

which you should always use, is the Woman In Labour,

where you plant two feet onto the door.

But I committed to this recently in a petrol station

just outside of Bolton, and I'd fully committed,

but you have to be a master of your surroundings,

I didn't realise the door in question opened both ways!

LAUGHTER

This, like, hairy trucker ripped it off and literally thought

I was kind of presenting myself to him!

"Hello!"

Now, the lap.

I ought to explain, you did actually ditch the manual, didn't you,

for the lap and go to an automatic?

Yeah, I thought that was best cos I wanted to get all the way around it.

The only trouble with an automatic is you're not going to...

You'll probably not get very high up that anyway, so... Let's not worry too much about that.

Who here would like to see the result of your driving lesson?

-AUDIENCE: Yeah!

-Here we go.

-Oh, dear.

Flying solo for the first time.

Come on, Jack. You are a king of speed!

-We shall see, you look a bit frightened.

-I was very frightened.

-You've steered round that one.

-It sounds awful.

Oh, good God! And off.

-That counts though, doesn't it?

-Yes, yes, yes, you're still...

-To be honest, a lot of what The Stig says is

-BLEEP!

It's really just about... Oh!

JEREMY LAUGHS

I guess we'll never know, as we do Chicago,

heading down to the Hammerhead. Where are you going?

-That's completely the wrong...

-Oh, I feel so sick.

-You made yourself sick!

-I made myself sick.

And here we go, round the Hammerhead... Whoops!

-That was quite good.

-Not really... Ooh!

The big circular thing is necessary there in front of you.

Is it low on petrol?

Cos it kept beeping.

Right, so, it was beeping at you?

Don't go off there! Tyres.

This one was good.

Oh, braking there!

That's ballsy because that can upset the rear end

in a front-wheel-drive car

and I may be talking French as far as you're concerned there.

Only Gambon to go and can you do it?

Oh, wait a minute, yes, nearly, you can! Across the line!

CHEERING

I got there.

So, how fast do you think you did it?

-Where do you think you came on the board?

-Oh, I don't know.

In between Hiddleston and Bonneville?

You're hoping to get between Tom and Hugh? Around about the 1.50 mark?

Yeah.

You did it, Jack Whitehall... You're leaning forward like a pro...

-One minute...

-One minute, that's good.

..50...

There's no kind way of saying this.

-..4.5.

-AUDIENCE GROANS

AUDIENCE: Aw!

It's all right, you know...

Getting in the car for me was a victory in itself.

Do you want to move it further down?

I feel like I'm sullying that person by being there.

But that, I mean...

Maybe I could come back after I've actually learnt to drive

and I would get a competitive time.

I'd like to have you back because it's been bloody good fun having you.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Whitehall!

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Now... If you want a car that's fast, you're spoiled for choice.

Same story if you want a car that's economical or cheap,

or has a big boot, but what if you're a massive showoff and your main

requirement is for a car that makes you stand out in your hometown?

Well, that can be a lot trickier

depending upon the town where you live, as I shall now demonstrate.

Welcome to the United Arab Emirates, where, as you can see,

it takes quite a lot to stand out on the car front.

Out here, your common or garden Ferrari or Lamborghini

can no longer cut the mustard.

So what do you do if you want to turn heads?

Well, I think I may have the answer.

ENGINE REVS

You see, everyone thinks about blinging their wheels,

but nobody ever thinks of adding MORE wheels.

This is the new six-wheeled version of Mercedes' iconic G-Wagen.

And beside the extra wheels, it also ticks the rarity box

because it's one of only two in existence.

More will be built, though I suspect not many

when you consider the price, which is a trouser-troubling £370,000.

The six-wheel G-Class was originally built for the Australian Army,

who demanded standard equipment like seats and doors.

In this civilian version, however, you get heated

and ventilated electric leather chairs,

a leather-trimmed dashboard

and a bamboo-lined cargo bay.

You really do get a lot of car for your money, as in A LOT OF CAR.

I mean, look at it.

It's nearly a metre longer than a Range Rover

and it's got 37-inch wheels.

I reckon I could get my head in the gap between the wheel

and the wheel arch.

Yeah, I can. Try doing that in a Range Rover.

ENGINE REVS

The six-by-six also weighs three-and-three-quarter tonnes

or the same as three VW Golfs.

So, engine-wise, it can't afford to mess about.

It's actually got a 5.5 litre, 536-horsepower twin-turbo V8

from Mercedes' in-house nutterists, AMG.

Oh, we're getting a move on!

560 pound-feet of torque.

0-60 in under six seconds.

That's sports car stuff in something the size of a shopping centre.

Fuel economy? Well, I doubt this will be the official transport

to the next Greenpeace annual conference.

All I'll say is they thought it best to fit two fuel tanks.

You change over using this switch up here.

And everybody loves an overhead switch.

If I drove this down Ross-on-Wye high street,

I would be lord of all I survey.

The undisputed king of Herefordshire.

Never mind Herefordshire, this thing attracts attention even around here.

SIREN WAILS

Seriously?

Really?

'Yeah, he's serious.

'As it turned out,

'the policeman had never seen such an unusual car before...'

There's six wheels. I guess it's the same on the other side.

'..and was on his way again after he'd had a look.'

Bye!

Lamborghini Aventador police car. They don't have those in Ross-on-Wye.

Or these...

Ferrari FF.

That's an S... MG.

What a funny day.

Now, although the six-by-six is seriously quick on tarmac and turns

policemen's heads, where it's really built to shine is as an off-roader.

Let me give you an example.

A Land Rover Defender can wade through half a metre of water

and that's very good.

This can wade through twice that.

However, this being the desert, water is quite hard to find,

so if you want to test it, you do have to improvise.

Morning, sorry.

Sorry. This is, unless I'm very much mistaken, a metre of water.

And the six-by-six is... wading through it.

Even dealing with the rubber rings.

Yeah, not having any difficulties with this at all.

But how does it cope with sand?

Well, the good news is, sand is one thing we're really not short of.

Welcome to the Empty Quarter.

The largest sand desert in the world.

Covering some 250,000 square miles.

Out here, temperatures hit 50 degrees centigrade

and there are dunes more than 800ft high.

OK, we have six-wheel drive

with the power split 30-40-30 across the axles... check.

Stronger front springs from the armoured version of the G-Class...

check.

Locking diffs - oh, we've got those.

The most you'd expect normally would be three. On here, five!

And you lock them using these buttons in different ways.

Right, let's go.

These are big, big dunes.

This is more of a sand mountain I'm on right now.

Oh! Three-and-three-quarter tonnes of Mercedes

is doing this, it just doesn't feel right!

HE CACKLES

This extra axle and these two extra wheels, it changes the way the

six-by-six travels over the ground, it undulates, it feels supple.

It's like blasting through the desert dunes...

..riding a sinew.

HE LAUGHS

Come on!

O-o-o-oh!

-No!

-BLEEP!

I got some air. Sorry, everybody.

'Intoxicated by what the Merc could do,

'I drove deeper and deeper into the Empty Quarter.'

Right, where's it go now?

Cos... Oh, my God! Oh!

Oh, for crying out loud!

I wouldn't ski down that!

OK.

Whoa-oh-oh-aah!

Over the top, over the top... Oh! Oh, very unpleasant, not nice!

HE YELLS

It's vertical!

I'm in a car, I'm having a plane crash!

I'm still going down!

Oh, what a stupid place, I hate it!

Ahead, I saw a nice, flat desert floor

'and decided that was a much safer place to be.'

HE LAUGHS

It's drifting!

Now it's a rally car, a gigantic rally car.

And let's not forget, I'm not having to shout over this,

it's not "Raaargh!" in here.

I'm still cocooned in luxury.

It's an amazing device.

Now, when you take an off-roader across sand,

the standard practice, as I've done,

is to let some air out of the tyres to give them a bigger footprint.

Now I'm going back on tarmac, so I need to reinflate them.

All I've got to do is operate these overhead switches.

I feel like a jet pilot.

Compressor on.

Going up.

And they can reinflate ALL of these tyres in under a minute.

Oh, I love this.

If I did this in Ledbury I'd be mobbed by now.

Leaving the Empty Quarter behind, I headed back towards civilisation.

I'm not going to pretend this is anything less than

a preposterous machine.

It's a six-metre,

three-and-three-quarter tonne, £370,000, six-wheeled dinosaur,

but as dinosaurs go, it is a magnificent one.

Magnificent to behold, magnificently made,

it's one of the car world's mad moments.

A day off from Priuses and Leafs.

And even in a country as chock-full of showy-offy cars as this one,

it's still really rather special.

You can forget your chrome wraps and whatever,

I don't think you can beat

just having more wheels than anything else,

and I can say with absolute confidence

that I have more wheels than any other... Oh.

No matter, one thing I can say for sure is that this is

the most extreme Mercedes out here.

I doubt there's anything with a Mercedes badge in these parts

that can draw as much attention... as that.

All right, so I don't have the most wheels,

it's not the most extreme Mercedes out here,

but the six-by-six does have size on its side.

Bigger than any Range Rover, bigger than any Land Cruiser,

bigger than that old Jeep up there and that's the thing -

a car can be beautiful but when it's big,

it's got presence and they don't come much bigger than...

Oh... my... God...

I want this one.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Brilliant.

Embarrassingly, whilst there,

I ran the Merc out of petrol

-in the place where they actually grow the stuff.

-Really?

-It was awful, I felt an idiot.

-Never mind that,

can we just look at that picture of you at the end?

LAUGHTER

You do look like something out of The Borrowers,

-to be brutally honest.

-But I have to say that Jeep is incredible.

Sadly, it was broken the day I was there, but it does actually move.

And I'd like to see that one day, but now it is time for me

-to demonstrate that cars are better than motorbikes.

-Oh, no.

-Hang on. Jeremy, we've only got a few minutes.

-Yes, yes, listen.

Come over here, because what we have here is a table laid for two, OK?

And I'm going to remove this tablecloth without knocking

-anything over.

-Where are you going with this?

Everybody, stand back behind me,

-because you need to be... quick to do this.

-Well...

CHEERING

Well, yeah. Oh, well done.

That's really cleared that up for us(!)

Bikes are faster than a table! Or something.

What's that got to do with anything?

It went rather well, better than I'd expected, if I'm honest!

Anyway, the thing is, BMW once did that trick with a much larger table,

as I shall now demonstrate with this bit of film.

ENGINE REVS

CHEERING

-Well, that is tremendous, it's amazing.

-Well done, the motorbike.

Yeah.

But what I'm going to do now is that exact same thing only with a car.

You are aware, aren't you, that a Superbike accelerates very fast?

Yes, Hammond, from say 10-150, but to do that you need

the instant acceleration, it's 0-10 that matters.

That is a very good point

because it's very difficult to get a bike off the line.

Right, I'll admit, it usually spins the wheel or it flips over backwards.

You see, cars don't flip over backwards,

it's one of the many reasons why they're better.

-And the car I've selected is this one.

-A Datsun?

A Nissan GT-R.

No, I approve of your choice of car, actually, I have to say.

Yeah, cos May and I were playing with one of these the other day

and the way it sets off is simply unbelievable.

I mean, it really is,

there's no car I've ever driven that goes from 0-10 faster.

It's got four-wheel drive and an amazing launch control system.

So you put your foot hard down on the accelerator, hard on the

brake, take your foot off the brake, computer does everything

-and you set off.

-OK, and this is the table, yeah?

-Yes, it is.

So let's get this straight.

-You are going to pull this tablecloth off this, what, 18ft table?

-Yes.

-Using this Datsun?

-Listen...

-Without breaking anything?

-Without knocking a single thing over.

-Really?

-Yes.

The words "stand" and "back" spring to mind.

Ye of little faith.

OK, I'm using the same length of rope that BMW did.

Same amount of slack that they did,

we're pulling from the same place that they did.

Everything is... What?

-Have you actually measured this out?

-A bit.

You've got to go 18ft to get the tablecloth off the table,

-plus the length of that bit off the end...

-Yes.

..plus you got to account for the amount of rope

and you've got to stop before you hit the other side of the studio.

-No, I haven't.

-You have.

-I haven't, because I'm not going to drive it.

He is.

Ladies and gentlemen, The Stig has come among us.

CHEERING

Very rarely in the studio.

-Hold on a minute.

-Very rarely...

-Hold on a minute.

-Yes, what?

So you are saying he is going to drive across our darkened studio,

peering through his darkened visor?

-Yes.

-Is this how this Stig dies?

LAUGHTER

Has he done a book?

No, he hasn't. Right, is he ready?

Are you ready?

LAUGHTER

-Everybody here ready?

-AUDIENCE:

-Yes!

Oh, God!

We have no idea how it's going to work out,

but I have hope in my heart.

In three, two, one, go!

APPLAUSE

JAMES LAUGHS

-Well?

-That was mostly incredibly successful.

-How, in what way?

He didn't hit the wall, as we can see.

But everything else has hit the floor, it's smashed to bits!

Yes, but look! There's a whole cup and saucer, not damaged.

-It didn't work.

-It didn't... It is most odd actually.

Can we see a replay of that, maybe work out what went wrong.

-Oh, there's the problem.

-What?

-He's doing it too slowly.

No, that's in slow motion, you idiot.

Well, if he hadn't have done it in slow motion, it would have worked!

-For crying out loud!

-But now look!

-It's a disaster.

-It's a bombshell.

-And that means we can end.

-Yes.

-Mm.

Thank you ever so much for watching, we'll see you next week.

Take care, good night.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE