Move over tweedy dramas, Top Gear is back to make Sunday TV worth watching again.
Clarkson pits his Ford GT against the world’s best super cars
Take ‘em to the bridge
Supercars aren’t just glorious poster material for kids’ bedroom walls. They are a prime example of man’s superiority over animals. Our ability to construct objects of awesome power and exquisite design is what drives us, what inspires us, what constantly says to the dolphin: ‘you may be pretty clever, but where are your opposable thumbs, smart arse?’
So, we wanted to celebrate the single greatest supercar of today, but our presenters couldn’t agree what that was. Eventually, we decided to let them bring one each.
May brings the Ferrari 430, Hammond picks the Pagani Zonda, and Jeremy just has to plump for the Ford GT. Well, he has bought one. Twice.
Our celebration takes us through France until we reach another example of mankind creating splendour just for the sake of it - the epic Millau Bridge. Prepare for one of the most stunning items Top Gear has ever made. And the shock of James May driving like his brogues are on fire.
Remote control cars
Remote control cars are great. But we recently found something even more exciting - real-life remote control cars. So, we bought a pair of scruffy old barges and had them converted to be driven by a radio controller from a safe distance away.
James and Richard excitedly turn up at a disused quarry to play with their new toys and discover to their horror that they are pitted in a contest against a remote control racing champion. Who’s also a 13-year-old girl. Never have May and Hammond been so scared of someone who likes McFly… apart from Jeremy.
Can the Audi RS4 super-saloon beat a man to the top of a rock face? We find out
Generation gap
Like Wife Swap, but without the wives - or the swapping - Top Gear brings together polar opposites for a big fight.
In the tweed corner, James May and the Healey Sport Club. They like warm, cloudy beer and cold, cloudy days. That way they can wear their favourite anoraks. In the heavily modified corner, Richard Hammond’s new best mate Absy and his crew. They like blue alcopops and Bluewater shopping centre. It’s a great place to buy expensive Argos jewellery.
The question is simple: can the outright power of youth beat the old fashioned skills of agility and handling?
To find out we go to Prescott Hill Climb course in Gloucestershire to pit Absy’s V6 engined, unrecognisably modified Peugeot 306 against the Healey Club’s carefully fettled Frogeye Sprite.
The Stig does the driving while James talks carbs and suspension camber with his beards, and Hammond gives mad props to his ‘homies’, even though he has almost no idea what that means.
This is the ultimate test of power vs handling, youth vs experience.
Three go mad on the Isle of Man
Welcome to one of the most exciting tests of 2005. From Britain, the stunning new Aston Martin V8 Vantage. From Germany, the timeless Porsche 911. And from another part of Germany, the upsettingly puce BMW M6.
To test this threesome, our boys needed somewhere that provided both speed limit-free roads and a decent cup of tea. That’ll be the Isle of Man, then. In sodden Manx weather, the scene was set for a shootout that’s got the lot: Arguments! Intrigue! The Stig! And some handy tips about fishing.
The boys buy a pair of old barges and have them converted to be driven by a radio controller
Mazda MX-5 vs greyhound
Top Gear has always loved the Mazda MX-5. But now, 15 years after the original MX-5 came along, there’s a brand new one and that’s a worry. What if they’ve accidentally chucked away all the agile joy of the old car?
Well, Mazda claim not, and they’re boasting of the sacred Japanese principles like jinba ittai - horse and rider in perfect harmony - which guided its development. So, to find out if the new MX-5 handles as well as its predecessor, we employed a principle of our own which we call ‘Chaseu Dogu’.
In other words, we sent Hammond to have a race against a greyhound. The car can do 0-60 in 7.9secs. But the dog can hit 45mph in just six strides. So, a pretty even race. Although the Mazda doesn’t need to follow a stuffed bunny.
Audi RS4 vs rock climber
The new Audi RS4 is reckoned to be an impressive bit of kit. Some think it might even have the measure of the BMW M3. But, frankly, that’s irrelevant, as Top Gear answers the question that everyone’s been asking: can the new goatee-grilled super saloon beat a man to the top of a rock face?
The setting for this remarkable challenge is the Verdon Gorge in France, often called Europe’s Grand Canyon (by the French tourist board). The climber is Leo Houlding, who is brave for a living, and the driver is Jeremy Clarkson, who isn’t.
Clearly the Audi can’t drive up a cliff face, but happily someone has built a road up the gorge, perfect for testing the car’s acceleration and handling. No such gentle gradients for the climber, he’s going straight up sheer rock with only a slim rope keeping him from going home in a bucket. Prepare for epic
scenery, buttock-clenching bravery and an ending you simply cannot miss.
Top Gear tries to turn Richard into a Popsicle
Freezing Hammond
No series of Top Gear would be complete without an earnest attempt to kill Richard Hammond. So far we’ve tried to drown him, electrocute him and skewer him in the Pamplona bull run. Yet still he comes back for more. So now we’re trying a different tack - death by freezing.
For this we needed the kind of brutal chill you normally only experience in the Polar regions of the world. Then, handily, we found out there’s a special climatic chamber in Warwickshire that can plumb temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees centigrade, so we went there instead.
In these extreme conditions it can be mere minutes before you develop uncontrollable shivers and extreme disorientation, then your nose goes black and you die. But providing Hammond with some small chance of survival is the new Citroen C1 diesel - mainly because we made up some story about finding out what happens to a modern car when you expose it to extreme cold.
But really we just wanted to see what happens when a television presenter’s head snaps off.
Supercar for Fiesta money
Motoring magazines are forever banging on about buying an old supercar for the price of a new runabout. So, Top Gear decided to put this to the test and, with a maximum budget of £10,000 each, told our presenters to bag themselves three Seventies Italian thoroughbreds.
Once they had done that, we lined up a series of challenges to find out what joy or misery you are getting for the price of that small Ford.
If you have ever wondered where a Ferrari 308 GT4 goes rusty, how to change the oil on a Maserati Merak or what lap dancers think of a Lamborghini Urraco, you should watch this test. Although if you really wonder about such things, you are also frighteningly strange.
Man and Mazda in perfect harmony. But can they beat the greyhound?
Gran Turismo NSX vs real Honda NSX
Sometime over the summer Jeremy became hooked on that acne-wracked teenager’s favourite Gran Turismo 4, and that gave us an idea.
He was banging on about how sweetly his virtual Honda NSX handles and how excellent he is at flicking it around the digital version of the snaky Laguna Seca track in northern California.
So, we got an actual NSX and flew actual Jeremy on an actual plane to actual America to see if he could beat his computer-game lap time in real life. And that’s no easy task because Laguna Seca is one of the world’s most challenging tracks.
When you crash in the game, you make yourself a cup of tea and start again. If you crash at the real track, you will be drinking your tea through a straw. So, the perfect challenge for a middle-aged man with a dicky back, then.
Bugatti Veyron vs plane
We love a good pan-European car versus public transport challenge on Top Gear. So far we’ve pitted an Aston DB9 against the fast train to Monte Carlo (victory: Clarkson, Team Car).
We’ve run a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti against a jet aircraft to Verbier (victory: Clarkson, Team Car). And we put a Mercedes SLR McLaren against a boat to Oslo (victory: Clarks… etc, etc).
Now comes our greatest race ever. The route is from the northern Italian town of Alba to the southern British town of London.
Jeremy takes the incredible (and incredibly delayed) 987bhp Bugatti Veyron, while Richard and James are once again going by air. But this time there’s a twist, because your pilot for this TG Airlines flight is Captain May of the King’s Own Still Having Flying Lessons Corps.
Clarkson will be punched straight through Europe by the mighty fist of the world’s most powerful car. The other two will be taking a not quite as-the-crow-flies route because James can’t fly over the Alps. Apparently he hasn’t done that bit of the course yet.
Nonetheless, Clarkson could be in trouble this time, unless, of course, James flies as slowly as he drives.
