Ben Collins Stunt Driver (2015) Movie Script
1
Great job guys, nice fall.
Ah, lovely. Didn't need that one.
- Thanks a lot.
- Thanks, Ben.
Ah, cheers, Andy. Sweet, thanks.
I'm Ben Collins. I've been a stunt driver
on Batman, Bond, Fast and Furious.
I've also played
the masked racing driver
on a popular motoring
programme called Top...
Hello, Ben.
Thanks for joining me
at such short notice.
Oh, it's, it's an absolute pleasure.
Uh, do you not think this
would be easier on the phone?
You will soon understand
the need for precautions.
Yep, you're a known paranoid and, uh...
We've known each other
for years, anyway.
- And you're certain of this?
- Your name's Barry.
You're the psychotic stunt coordinator,
uh, whose got, sort of this massively
overblown sense of secrecy.
I brought you here because I need someone
with a very specific set of skills.
Okay, go on.
It's a high-profile feature film
that requires a high-speed car chase.
Well, you have cable-tied
the right man for the job.
The scene is set
at a high-security weapons store,
at a top secret location,
manned by heavily-armed mercenaries.
Some of the guards hear
the sound of an engine roaring to life,
and our hero car,
with you driving, naturally,
leaps up from an underground bay
and the chase is on.
The guards, realising
it's a rogue vehicle,
open fire on the car
that's racing through the weapons store,
avoiding other vehicles and gun fire.
Armed with blanks?
In the main, yes.
- In the main?
- With the alarm raised...
A guard triggers
the electric gate to seal the facility.
You, in the hero car, must make it
through before the gates close.
Providing you get through,
you'll begin to make your escape
off-road around the outer
perimeter of the store.
After avoiding further gunfire,
you will then be pursued by a 4x4.
This means that the hero car
must run well off-road.
Okay, I think I can handle that.
Could you just rewind
to the part about the blanks?
Once you have made your way
onto the main road,
the car needs the speed
to outrun the 4x4.
After this, you'll then
be pursued by two further vehicles,
yet to be decided by the director.
Any idea what they are, or...
The last attack will be from the air,
either by plane, helicopter
or by attack drones.
Naturally, the aircraft will be armed.
With blanks?
The feature film is set in
the present day, so no old stuff.
You have 48 hours to get out there
and find me the perfect car
for this stunt.
Great. You've got yourself
a stunt driver.
Now, although Barry the stunt
coordinator's recruitment techniques
are a bit unorthodox, to say the least,
he does have an exciting mission.
But it's quite a tough one
because it's not that straightforward,
picking a car that performs
just as well off-road as it does on it.
And, I'll tell you now,
I'm not picking an SUV.
They claim to be masters
of everything, but really,
they don't do anything that well.
And the other thing that is playing
on my mind is this aerial attack,
because whether it's
a plane, a heli or a drone,
all of them have a massive top speed,
and I need something that can outrun it.
But I do know a place
where top speed is almost unlimited.
This is Rockingham Motor Speedway,
a 1 .5-mile piece of Americana
that looks like it crash landed in the
middle of the English countryside.
This seven-degree banked super speedway
is the fastest of its kind in Europe.
But, it's not just the track that makes it
feel like you're in the deep south.
Because Rockingham has a fleet
of America's greatest gift
to the motorsport world,
NASCARs.
Born out of the days of moonshiners,
running illegal whisky at high speed
across the southern states.
It's now a multibillion dollar
global motorsport empire.
Now, the secret of NASCAR's
success is its sheer simplicity.
Because, here I am, sitting
inside a space frame cage,
basically covered in steel sheeting.
Up front is a bellowing
V8 push rod engine
that kicks out 600 horsepower,
slaved to the rear axle
by this gigantic prop shaft.
It sits on these great,
big Goodyear bags of rubber
that's gluing me to the track
when I wind the engine up.
Given an open stretch,
easily I can bust it past 200.
And that's enough to keep
a helicopter or a drone
or pretty much whatever it is
that is coming at me
from an aerial attack, on its toes.
Gonna get the hammer down, baby!
Shake and Bake! Shake and Bake!
I just love this car.
It reminds me of the good
old days I had here
racing in the ASCAR series,
when I won the European championship,
and set the lap record,
which still stands.
So, this NASCAR has super speed,
so it gets a massive tick in the box,
in terms of evading aerial attack.
And it can maintain
those speeds for extended periods,
so, another important tick there.
The only thing that is troubling me,
when I'm travelling in a straight line,
I have to turn the steering
wheel quite a long way to the right.
That's because this car is built
to turn left and kind of only left.
So, what I'm gonna do is
take it onto the infield
and see how it fares when I turn right.
It's so unstable
and the brake pedal is so stiff.
Jeez.
Okay, that wasn't very good
or dignified.
The brakes just aren't
designed to be leant on that hard,
because you hardly brake on the oval.
Because the wheels are pointing
the wrong way, when I turn right,
you just get this massive understeer,
touch the throttle
and the back end lights up,
because the axle's pointing
the wrong way as well.
It's like driving, I don't know...
A wheelie bin.
Here we go.
There's another tight hairpin.
I'm dreading this.
Keep turning, keep turning,
nothing's happening.
I think I'll be doing that all day long.
I love this baby, but I think I'll have
to retire it and find something else.
Something like that looks pretty nice.
Now, I know Barry said no old cars,
but if it was good enough for Steve
McQueen in Bullitt, it'd be rude not to.
Now, this is a bit more like it!
A proper American muscle car.
The 1965 Ford Mustang was built to
chew up road courses like this one.
Now I should have no problem
tackling a few lefts and rights.
I love these old cars.
You can feel the heritage of it.
You can smell the leather.
You can smell some gasoline,
actually, to be honest.
You've got lots of movement in the Tyre
that, really, you can embrace it
and drive the car to its limit.
I drove a car just like this one
in Fast and Furious,
chasing through the streets of London.
Now, that high-pitched
sound you're hearing
is the inside wheel spinning,
so there's obviously...
There's no lock diff
in the back putting traction
through both rear tyres, which is
not good for making forward progress.
It's, uh, pretty spongy
and not really that stable,
and the jelly-like suspension...
Well, you can't exactly say
it corners like it's on rails.
Oh!
It's all right, granddad.
The beauty of the '65 Mustang, though,
is it does look the part,
and I'll give it that.
But I don't think
I'll get many points for that
when I'm under attack from live rounds,
from whatever it is that
Barry's got in store for me.
And as much as I love this track
and these machines,
my search is going to
have to Cary on elsewhere,
because I think that when
it really comes down to it,
these old boys are going to let me down.
You have one new message.
Ben, don't think I'm not
monitoring your every move.
I told you, no old cars.
Stop disobeying orders
and carry out the mission.
Otherwise, I will be forced
to take extreme measures.
Now, as much as
I love old school American muscle cars,
those ones just threw up far
more questions than answers.
They are totally impractical,
fragile even by modern standards.
But, what I do still need is something
with the NASCAR top speed
that corners like it's on rails.
In short, what I think
I need is a supercar.
And there's none more capable
or more loaded with technology
than the one I'm driving next.
Welcome to the future.
This is the 650S,
the latest creation from McLaren
and a quantum leap
in terms of car design.
Every inch of this technical marvel
has been engineered
to make it go faster than its rivals.
From the integrated
front splitter that creates downforce,
to these unique door blades that help
generate incredible grip and balance.
And then, there's the engine,
a twin-turbo V8 warp drive
that propels the 650S to
a top speed of 207 miles per hour.
Now, that really is
flying machine speed.
Now, I'm fortunate enough to have driven
well, nearly every
supercar in the modern era,
from Bugatti to Ferrari, Aston Martin
to Lamborghini, all of them.
And they all have one thing
very much in common,
which is that they're
different to this McLaren,
because this car is truly unique,
in that it has liquid suspension,
and I'm not joking.
It's got hydraulic fluid that rushes
across the suspension very, very quickly,
and responds when you need to shore up
some support in a corner.
And it's absolutely incredible to drive,
because it's so responsive.
And if you're wondering where
this mythical technology comes from,
well, of course,
it comes from Formula 1.
McLaren have been involved
at the sharp end since the '60s,
and a lot of the active
technology on this car
was banned from Formula 1,
because it was an unfair advantage.
But all is fair in love, war,
supercars and stunt sequences.
So their loss is my gain.
And the other good thing about
Formula 1 technology is that it's tough.
This car is made from
a carbon fibre mono cell body
that sits around
the driver like a cocoon.
So it's fantastically
protective in a crash,
as well as giving you
the support in the corners.
Now, that should be good for taking
a bullet or five, if it comes to that.
With this kind of technology,
the 650S can accelerate to
60 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds,
and come to a dead stop
in just under 29 meters.
Now, some of those figures
are a little bit hard to comprehend,
so what I need to do
is a practical experiment
to show you just
how mind-blowing the McLaren really is.
This is an Audi A4 S Line,
the kind of car that typically
flashes you to get out of the way
of the fast lane on a motorway.
It's a tidy little car.
What I'm gonna do
is accelerate from 0 to 60,
and back to 0 as fast as I can,
and I'll jump in the 650S
and we'll compare the difference.
So, into sport mode.
Off we go.
Here we go it's 40, 50...
And 60!
Ah, pretty good for German engineering.
Very impressive braking.
Now, it's time to hop in
the McLaren and see the difference.
Now, in the Audi, that launch
was similar to a sort of
fast getaway from the traffic lights.
But in the McLaren, when this launches,
its gonna be like a space shuttle.
Apollo 13. No, Interstellar
is a better example.
So, get it into D,
set the launch control on.
Okay, so it's ready.
All I have to do is floor it.
And the turbo spools up, it's ready,
and I just dump the brake and we're off!
Oh, the braking, blimey.
Literally, you're peeling
the back of your head off the chair,
and the next thing is you're trying to
keep your nose off the dashboard.
And the distance compared to the Audi,
this is half the space.
0 to 60, back to naught
in hardly any space at all.
The McLaren certainly
has the straight line speed
to escape an aerial threat.
But, does it have
the manoeuvrability I need as well?
A striking feature of this car
is the aerodynamics.
Of course, McLaren
calls it the Active Aero.
Get on the brakes,
it pops up like a barn door,
acting as an air brake and stabilising
the car with extra downforce
to push the rear into the deck
and give you maximum braking force.
It's like having an R2-D2 on your shoulder,
setting X Foils into attack position.
Really incredible.
And it gives you
the confidence to attack these corners.
At the heart of this ship
is an ultra lightweight V8 engine,
powered with two turbochargers.
You just hear those
spooling up behind you,
there's this beautiful whistling sound
when you lay down the power.
This car only takes 5.7 seconds
to reach 100 miles an hour.
It's ridiculously fast.
The supercars of yesteryear
took that long to get from 0 to 60.
That engine just keeps on pushing
this car all the way up to 207 miles an hour.
So I love it.
It seems to be almost unbreakable.
Of course the question is,
will it be good enough for Barry?
Well, stopping power is, well, unbelievable,
acceleration, yep, phenomenal.
Handling-wise,
it's totally out of this world.
I think the other thing to
think about is, uh, off road.
Hmm, that could be interesting.
Right, now, there's an off-road course
around here somewhere.
Here we go. Bit of a ski jump.
Let's give this a try.
Whoa, there's some nasty gravel.
Don't want to chip the paint
on this baby.
And I don't want
the dust going in the air intake either.
The ride height on the McLaren
is not exactly high.
There's a bit of a dip,
let's have a... Whoa!
Well, that's enough.
That's going to rip the splitter off.
Right, I can't get over that.
As painful as it is to admit,
the McLaren 650S may not be
the ideal tool for off-roading.
So, I think this is going to
have to come off the menu.
Sorry, baby,
let's get you back off here.
What an amazing car.
The McLaren is just
a feat of engineering and design.
It's as good as anything I've ever driven
in terms of balance and performance.
And if this chase sequence
was purely on the road,
with no evasive manoeuvres
or hand brake turns,
the 650S would be my choice.
But I think I need something
with just a bit more all-round capability.
In fact, I think if
I drove it up on to the set,
Barry would probably kill me,
and then he'd steal the keys.
The thing that is starting to nag me a bit,
though, is this aerial attack business.
I really haven't got a clue
what I'm up against or how to evade it.
I think I'm gonna have to do
some serious research.
This is the Extra 300
aerobatic stunt plane.
Powered by
a 300 brake horsepower engine,
it has a top speed
in excess of 250 miles per hour.
But it's the sheer manoeuvrability
and handling of this thing that makes it
the F1 car of air race planes.
And this one has been
fitted with two seats.
I think you can probably
see where this is going.
My wingman for the day
is former RAF fast jet pilot
Mark Greenfield.
With over 20 years of
aerobatics coaching under his belt,
including a stint running the world-famous
Empire Test Pilot school,
he's a real-life top gun.
- Are you ready?
- I'm ready. Let's do it.
Okay, power's coming on.
So, that's us airborne.
That did not take long, did it?
No, not at all.
Once airborne, Mark doesn't hesitate
to show me what the plane can do.
Ah...
I hate you already.
Well, I admit I was, uh...
Obviously the whole reason
of coming up here is to try and gauge
how I'm going to fare in a car
against something in the air.
And, uh, I'm not sure if I'm feeling
as confident after that.
And things generally
got worse from there.
Oh, my God.
I don't know what just happened,
but I'm glad that it's over.
I was starting to realise
I could be in serious trouble.
But, the whole thing with a car is that
I can stop, whereas you can't.
Well, it depends
what you mean by stopping.
If you can brace yourself and
I'll show you how we'll stop
relative to the ground in three seconds.
I don't know if I'm gonna like this.
Okay, so that's effectively
a right angle turn there.
- Yeah
- And so, the movement
over the ground was...
uh, pretty much 0.
I just feel like
you've got a whole range of tools
with which to punish me
while we're up here, and...
I don't think that I did anything to you
in a former life to justify that.
As it turned out, though,
Mark had been saving the best until last.
The Cravat, a highly-dangerous
aerobatic manoeuvre
which sends the plane into a wild spin,
twisting around and around in the vertical
whilst tumbling at the same time.
Okay, so, we're gonna pull up
gently into the vertical,
and we're about to go direct...
How was that?
I think, what you've done there is,
you've taken a boy's dream
and you've turned that into a nightmare.
I have your best interests at heart,
but I do want to make sure you understand
the capabilities of an aeroplane.
Mark's demonstration has proven to me
just how formidable
this aerial attack might be.
If we reverse the roles,
and you had to choose a car
to get away from an aeroplane,
what would you choose?
Well, I'd want something that
is very manoeuvrable
and very agile
and tight turning circle would be good.
Lots of power and something that's
camouflaged to match its surroundings.
Next, Mark decided to show me
how devastating a strafing run
would be at 250 miles per hour.
Here we go, rolling in.
Wow, that's amazing,
when you see the ground open up like that.
This is quite low!
There's just no denying it.
A plane is faster, more agile
and more lethal than
I could ever have imagined.
If Mark had been hunting me in the plane,
I would have had nowhere to hide.
Well, thank you very much.
I think I've learned
all I need to know about...
An acrobatic, aerobatic
wizard like yourself.
So, I hope I never meet you again.
Cos if you're working for the other
side, I'm in deep trouble.
Oh...
The ground is still moving
under my feet.
- You're a horrible, horrible man.
- It might do that for a little while.
Yeah, I'm not doing that again.
You have one new message.
Ben, I hired you to find me
a car, not a damn plane.
Stop trying to second-guess me.
That just makes me angry.
And trust me, you do not want that.
As unpleasant as that experience was,
it has given me some idea
of what I might be facing out there.
But I need to get on with this
because the clock is ticking.
And it's not helping me
with Barry's anger management issues.
Now, the stunt plane has given me an idea
about the type of car I might want to choose.
I've got one in mind now
for the underground scene
that could fit the bill and just about
give my attackers the slip.
It's 6:30 in the morning and, as instructed,
I've arrived on foot at this dockside,
where, apparently,
I'll be met by someone, hopefully.
And that someone is Michelle Westby,
a Drift Cup Competitor,
and my guide into the world of drifting,
the motorsport that's
taking the world by storm.
- Hi, Michelle. That's mega.
- Hi.
- Thank you.
- It's a great location...
And great big space. It's just like
San Tropez, but with concrete.
Beautiful location,
lovely smooth surface here...
- Perfect for drifting.
- Excellent.
I've got a first lesson for you as well.
I'm gonna take you over now to meet
the British Drift Champions,
and they're going to
give you quick crash course in drifting.
- Beauty. Cool. Cool.
- Let's go.
So, let me introduce you
to JapSpeed Drift Team and their drivers.
First up, we have Paul "Smokey" Smith,
Super Pro Drift British Champion of 2012
and one of the hardest
competitors on the scene.
Next up, we have Shane Lynch.
Irishman Shane made the switch
from circuit racing
to drifting in 2007 and
has not looked back since.
So, what I've arranged for you
is for Smokey to let you know
all you need to know about drifting.
- Smashing.
- And then you'll be battling it out
with Shane after, whilst me
and Smokey look on and judge a winner.
Sweet, let's do it.
- Smoke.
- All right.
Lovely stuff, good to
meet you, yeah. Brilliant.
Shane. Looks like a biter. So...
But we will tangle later, me and you.
Teach you some manners, boy. Oh, yeah.
Although my day job involves
quite a lot of drifting,
I've never done it competitively.
So I need to know what
the judges are looking for.
That's mega. And what kind of
things are you doing
to sort of, like, unseat the other driver,
cos you're in attack mode.
You're both in a tandem drift
and it's judged by a pair of judges.
So what are they looking for?
Well, they are looking for
general speed around the course.
- It's not a race.
- Yeah.
But they do like to see you going through
the course as fast as you possibly can.
So speed is important,
so it's not all about sliding.
It's not all about sliding.
It's controlling the power
and getting that power to the ground...
Yes, you're spinning the wheels, but you want
to be constantly moving forward.
And what about Shane, then? Do you know
any tricks to making him uncomfortable?
- If you go in and you're on his door...
- Yeah.
...he'll know you mean business.
And I think that could take the win.
- That's mega. Very cool.
- Yeah.
Now, when I do this with Shane,
can I tap him out the way, knock him off?
Don't crash into him,
judges don't like that...
- But you can rub him...
- Is it against the rules?
- Against the rules.
- It's not against my rules.
I do it all the time on the track.
- Really?
- Yeah.
All right, all right.
So, I have to do it fair and square,
loads of grip, loads of speed
and try and intimidate him.
Yeah, get as close as you can,
but don't hit him.
All right.
With the demonstration over,
it's time to take the wheel.
Well, I don't know how many points
I'm going to get for style,
but I'm just about
making it around this course.
But I don't feel I'm doing it
quite as neatly as Smokey.
Quayside, loads of toys.
This car is just so drivable,
it's unreal.
It feels like you can just
kick this thing anywhere.
550 horsepower, it's just so precise.
You can see why they tune these cars
so specifically for drifting.
Everything is just perfectly tuned,
but I can't stop sliding.
This doesn't feel very fast,
but it does feel spectacular.
Does feel like I could take it anywhere,
maybe even under that truck,
give it a go.
Impressive.
This could be the baby.
It's definitely the most fun car
I have ever driven, without a doubt.
Loads of power, super precise, I'm sold.
- Is that all right?
- That'll do.
Let's take him on, man.
I'm gonna take Shane down the town.
- I think you can do it.
- You reckon?
- Yeah
- Really?
I think it's different with
one than with two, isn't it?
- Yeah, it's a little bit different.
- All right.
- We'll see how you get on.
- Fair enough.
- Where is he? That way?
- Over there.
Mystery man.
Guys. Shane, you're to lead.
Ben, you must follow as close
to Shane's rear quarter as possible.
Shane, you ready? Ben, you ready?
Go!
Just when our epic battle
was heating up, disaster struck.
Shane's super charger on his
modified Nissan 370Z disintegrated,
resulting in catastrophic engine failure,
bringing our competition to an end.
It was just as well, really, because my
Silvia wasn't sounding too clever either.
Broken the diff. Mind you,
my pain is not as bad as Shane's.
This looks like a super charger belt,
another piece here.
We could try and knit
this together, mate.
That would make a lovely paperweight.
Technically... What about that?
That's default win, isn't it?
- No.
- His breakage is worse than mine.
- No.
- What do you mean "no"?
Do these things really break this often?
They do, unfortunately.
That's why we carry spares.
Spares... What do you mean "spares"?
Spares?
Barry hasn't got time for spares.
Where's he going?
These things are very unreliable, clearly.
And that's not gonna work well.
They're also quite slow, because...
It's great, their drifting,
they're amazing, they're spectacular
but you're going sideways,
you're not going forwards that quickly.
Top speed, 80 miles an hour...
Where is he... Where am I supposed to go?
Broken car. I'll follow him.
That came close, but no cigar.
The drift car made all the right noises,
but with that lack of
top speed and dodgy reliability,
I'd just be dead meat.
Adding some heat to the situation
is the abusive messages
I'm getting on my phone
from Barry, and the elephant in the room
is the small matter of finding a car
that actually can go fast off-road.
It's time to head west.
Hidden deep within
a rural valley in mid-Wales
lies over 10 miles
of demanding off-road track,
a network of punishing gravel roads,
which makes the perfect
testing ground for this...
The Ariel Nomad, an insane creation
that wouldn't look out of place
on the set of a Mad Max movie.
Ten years in the making,
this is the latest offering
from track day heroes, Ariel,
famous for their road-based
rocket ship, the Atom.
This machine is their idea
of what an off-road vehicle should be,
and it might just fit the bill.
Ariel will say that this car
will accelerate from 0 to 60 miles an hour
in just 3.4 seconds.
Now, that's Ferrari Enzo territory,
and if that's the case, these baddy soldier
people are in for some serious trouble.
That's first.
And that's second,
and that's straight to 62 miles an hour.
Like me, you're probably wondering
how the hell it does that.
Well, it's not doing it
with brute force,
because this engine
only pops out 235 horsepower,
which is practically a lawnmower.
Powered by a 2.4 litre Honda engine,
and it doesn't have a
supercharger or a turbo.
It's just good, old-fashioned torque.
The beauty of it is in
the power-to-weight ratio,
because the car
only weighs 570 kilograms,
which is about half a Ford Focus.
65% of that weight
is over the rear axle,
where you need it for traction because
this is rear-wheel-drive only.
I really thought that
would kill the steering,
but it doesn't.
This thing is so agile,
and just fires you
out of these corners, it's ridiculous.
Part of the grip story is from these
three-way adjustable dampers,
and these amazing all-terrain tyres,
that just eat the landscape
and spit it out the back.
Whoo!
It's almost easy to forget
why I came here in the first place,
which is to assess whether this baby
has got what it takes
to escape an aerial assault.
In terms of sheer straight line speed,
136 miles an hour...
Okay, it's not the
fastest thing in the world,
but you could pretty much
drive over anything at 80 miles an hour.
The thing that lets it down though,
there's just nothing protecting
the car's vital parts.
The engine is just covered
in the same plastic they use
to build traffic cones.
It's hardly bulletproof.
And I'm expecting some
serious flak from the sky.
It's with a very heavy heart,
but I'm gonna have to
say no to the Nomad.
However, I've got one more supercar
from the off-road world
that might just do the job.
This, as you can
probably tell, is a Mini,
but it couldn't be further away
from the run-of-mill estate agent chariot
you see every day in the High Street.
This one competes in
the World Rally Cross Championship,
one of the roughest
and toughest race series on the planet.
Okay, it's time to unleash
the fury of this baby.
There's quite a complicated
launch procedure.
I've got to hold of my
finger over the launch button.
Okay, I've got first gear,
gonna turn the anti-lag on.
There we go, I can already
feel the power surge.
Here we go.
Oh, my God, it's unbelievable power.
The kick in the back you get
is like from a Formula 1 car,
that does 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds,
up to 100 in five.
Absolutely ridiculous.
This model was originally designed
for the World Rally Championship,
but then they added an
enormous turbo so big...
Whoa!
...they had to give it a name.
Its name is Gerrard,
and when Gerrard gets angry,
you go very, very fast.
It kicks out 500 horsepower,
which is twice the Nomad had,
lancing itself very neatly
through this four-wheel-drive system,
just hammering me down this road.
Whoo!
It's also got this wonderful handbrake,
which has rear diff release,
which I admit, sounds like some kind
of bowel control problem.
What it allows me to do is
lock up the rear wheels
whilst applying the power
and just trim the nose
of the car into the corner
whilst accelerating,
and it's just incredible.
I'm very reassured by the fact that
this car is covered in Kevlar,
the stuff they make
bulletproof jackets from.
There's a whole shield
in front of the engine bay
and in the rear quarter panels,
so if I do come under fire,
I've got some pretty good protection there.
I've got a good feeling about this Mini.
I think this is the one.
Oh, hang on a minute.
Team are calling me in.
That was awesome. Thank you so much.
- Is everything okay?
- No, we need to refuel.
What, did you half fill it or
something, or was that a full tank?
- That is a full tank.
- You serious?
I'm serious.
Well, five minutes isn't going to cut
a car chase. There's no way.
This car had everything I wanted,
and now I've got to
start completely from scratch.
Ugh!
Hi, Barry.
Ben, don't mention names
over a cellular phone!
And you know why I'm calling.
Have you found me a car?
Uh, no, not quite.
What do you mean, "Not quite"?
Well, I've tested some amazing stuff
but nothing that's quite right for the job.
You really need to sort this.
Fourteen hours, find me that car!
I will, I promise. I've got a plan.
Barry... Hello?
Bye... Bye, Barry.
Thanks for calling.
Here are the final four cars
I'm assessing for this mission.
And to help me make the big decision,
I've brought in stunt driving
heavyweight, Martin Ivanov,
known as "the Russian."
A multiple-award-winning stunt
performer and driver,
we met on the set of Quantum of Solace,
and he's the one man I trust
when it comes to a car chase.
Martin, thanks for coming all the way from
Moscow to test these cars out.
You know the brief.
The first one we've got is the Audi S8,
and it should be good because it's,
you know, a true action movie favourite.
Yeah, perfect, this is the car.
No more searching needed.
Okay, great, that's good confidence
but we have got more in the car park,
so, this is just one of the four.
No, no, no, no. This is the car.
Now, to settle this argument,
we need to get out on the track.
The amazing thing with this car
is when you get into it,
it feels really big, it's like being
in a tank but it's so fast with it.
It's got twin-turbocharged,
V8 engine, 520 horsepower.
And because it's Quattro, I think
it's gonna be almost as good off-road
as putting its power down on the tarmac.
So I think you've got a point.
This could be a fantastic car.
But we are gonna test some more cars
because I still think
one of those ones in the garage
could be better than this one.
Yeah. Let's see.
And here's the next contender.
From super saloon to super car,
this is the Noble M600.
This could be a hero
or a villain's car with its mean looks.
But this beast is all
about killer performance.
Now, the reason I've chosen this Noble
is because it delivers true performance
in a very, very simple old-fashioned way
and I'm talking as basic
as horse and cart.
It goes from 0 to 60 in three seconds,
and just keeps going
until you get to 225 miles per hour,
which surely is enough to defeat
anything by land, sea or air.
I have to admit, aerodynamics are a
little bit light on the Noble,
which does make it quite
skittish at high speed
but it's also what makes it so fast.
Just look what it's like in the corners.
It's just balletic.
And the harder you drive it,
the more you get out of it.
I love this car.
I think this could be a winner.
Release the Russian.
I am coming.
I almost feel sorry for Martin,
in that I'm going to break his
spirit right at the beginning
because the advantage this
car is pulling on the Audi is sizeable.
It's killing it.
The poise in these chicanes is where
I really seem to break away from him.
Martin's car is leaning heavily,
blistering its front tyres no doubt,
as it tries to keep up with the Noble.
I'm sure he'll get over it
on his flight home.
Bye-bye, Martin.
Ugh! So much for
catching me, Martin. Where were you?
This car is a joke.
- What do you mean?
- Look at the ground clearance.
It's not that low, is it?
Your chase will end at first speed bump.
Well, let's go try
another one then. Come on.
- Yeah, let's do it.
- Grumpy.
Next is the Jaguar F-Type.
A stunning GT, which is giving
Aston Martin a run for its money.
It certainly looks the part,
but does it have it where it counts?
This is the Jaguar F-Type S,
a supercharged version of the V6 engine,
knocking out 374 brake horsepower.
It's got a shorter wheelbase
than that massive Audi,
which should give this the advantage
in the off-road part of the chase,
and it's got some ground clearance,
which was the Achilles heel for the Noble.
So, this has got to be
a strong candidate.
Now, unbelievably,
in terms of acceleration,
the Audi actually has
the edge over this Jag,
but this has longer legs,
and it can stretch them
to 171 miles an hour.
And it's great at drifting.
Which means I can throw loads of smoke
in the face of my would-be pursuers.
It's just so much fun, this car. Ahhh!
Release the Russian.
Come to papa.
It's much, much more
evenly-matched this time.
I've got a little bit more pick-up and
traction, just coming out of the corners
but as soon as we get on these straights,
he is closing right up on me.
This does not bode well.
Let's try the old smoking-tyre manoeuvre
and see if I can push him back a little bit.
Come on, Jag!
I've got my foot to the floor.
I can't stop him.
Ahhh, Martin!
Oh, I thought you'd be smug.
- Victory!
- I know what you're gonna say.
I mean, you kind of won,
but only in the straight bit.
- This is still a good car.
- But I won.
- All right, well, I've got one more, yeah?
- Yeah, your last chance.
Yeah, you're so tough.
I've saved the best till last.
The BMW M3 is a legend
of Teutonic performance.
The M3 has been trouncing its rivals,
on and off the race track,
for nearly four decades,
but is it the all-rounder I need?
Now this is BMW's brand new M3,
the pinnacle of German engineering,
a car that even Martin would approve of.
BMW have given this M3
a brand new engine.
They ditched the V8 for a lighter
straight 6 turbocharged unit,
firing out 425 horsepower.
It's an incredible car to drive.
You've got so much control
under your right foot.
Fantastic cornering.
And you can still drive it like
an absolute hooligan when you want to.
This car is great.
Deploy the Russian.
You don't know the power of dark side.
Now, instantly, I get the feeling
that we're much more closely-matched.
Both these cars have got
incredible poise through the corners.
He's hanging on, but it's nothing like
as deadly as it was with the Jag.
Even in this big straight, the Audi,
I can just see him closing in.
Argh! Braked a bit late.
Oh, you're close, Martin,
but you're not quite close enough.
Yeah.
Well, that was a workout, but one
of these cars definitely is a winner,
and I think I'm sitting in it.
Well, I think that was draw, yes?
I think even you'd agree with that.
Well, hallelujah,
let's break out the champagne.
I think this is the winner.
No.
Why?
Look at the colour.
Under aerial attack,
it's perfect target.
Well, thanks. I'm not sure I agree.
Well, I've got to pick something.
If you had to pick
any car other than the Audi,
which one would you pick?
Audi.
That's not helpful, is it?
Because I need to pick one.
This is it, this is the final reckoning.
I think I've made a decision, though,
which is it's got to be something else.
Today is the day of reckoning.
I really thought the BMW had it all,
but it just doesn't cover every base,
and now I'm gonna go
with a car, in my gut,
I'm convinced is the right one.
No more second-guessing.
Let's do this.
My final choice is quite simply an icon,
a thoroughbred sports car
that's pure Hollywood.
The Ford Mustang combines
European handling with American muscle,
making it the ultimate all-rounder,
and an unstoppable force.
Rogue vehicle, rogue vehicle!
So there you have it, folks,
the Ford Mustang GT.
Loads of grunt for getting
yourself out of trouble.
It's got a clutch
and a handbrake for evasive measures,
ample space in the trunk for an RPG 7
and it's super fast off-road
as well as on it.
I just hope the sequence
was enough to keep Barry... Oh!
Great job guys, nice fall.
Ah, lovely. Didn't need that one.
- Thanks a lot.
- Thanks, Ben.
Ah, cheers, Andy. Sweet, thanks.
I'm Ben Collins. I've been a stunt driver
on Batman, Bond, Fast and Furious.
I've also played
the masked racing driver
on a popular motoring
programme called Top...
Hello, Ben.
Thanks for joining me
at such short notice.
Oh, it's, it's an absolute pleasure.
Uh, do you not think this
would be easier on the phone?
You will soon understand
the need for precautions.
Yep, you're a known paranoid and, uh...
We've known each other
for years, anyway.
- And you're certain of this?
- Your name's Barry.
You're the psychotic stunt coordinator,
uh, whose got, sort of this massively
overblown sense of secrecy.
I brought you here because I need someone
with a very specific set of skills.
Okay, go on.
It's a high-profile feature film
that requires a high-speed car chase.
Well, you have cable-tied
the right man for the job.
The scene is set
at a high-security weapons store,
at a top secret location,
manned by heavily-armed mercenaries.
Some of the guards hear
the sound of an engine roaring to life,
and our hero car,
with you driving, naturally,
leaps up from an underground bay
and the chase is on.
The guards, realising
it's a rogue vehicle,
open fire on the car
that's racing through the weapons store,
avoiding other vehicles and gun fire.
Armed with blanks?
In the main, yes.
- In the main?
- With the alarm raised...
A guard triggers
the electric gate to seal the facility.
You, in the hero car, must make it
through before the gates close.
Providing you get through,
you'll begin to make your escape
off-road around the outer
perimeter of the store.
After avoiding further gunfire,
you will then be pursued by a 4x4.
This means that the hero car
must run well off-road.
Okay, I think I can handle that.
Could you just rewind
to the part about the blanks?
Once you have made your way
onto the main road,
the car needs the speed
to outrun the 4x4.
After this, you'll then
be pursued by two further vehicles,
yet to be decided by the director.
Any idea what they are, or...
The last attack will be from the air,
either by plane, helicopter
or by attack drones.
Naturally, the aircraft will be armed.
With blanks?
The feature film is set in
the present day, so no old stuff.
You have 48 hours to get out there
and find me the perfect car
for this stunt.
Great. You've got yourself
a stunt driver.
Now, although Barry the stunt
coordinator's recruitment techniques
are a bit unorthodox, to say the least,
he does have an exciting mission.
But it's quite a tough one
because it's not that straightforward,
picking a car that performs
just as well off-road as it does on it.
And, I'll tell you now,
I'm not picking an SUV.
They claim to be masters
of everything, but really,
they don't do anything that well.
And the other thing that is playing
on my mind is this aerial attack,
because whether it's
a plane, a heli or a drone,
all of them have a massive top speed,
and I need something that can outrun it.
But I do know a place
where top speed is almost unlimited.
This is Rockingham Motor Speedway,
a 1 .5-mile piece of Americana
that looks like it crash landed in the
middle of the English countryside.
This seven-degree banked super speedway
is the fastest of its kind in Europe.
But, it's not just the track that makes it
feel like you're in the deep south.
Because Rockingham has a fleet
of America's greatest gift
to the motorsport world,
NASCARs.
Born out of the days of moonshiners,
running illegal whisky at high speed
across the southern states.
It's now a multibillion dollar
global motorsport empire.
Now, the secret of NASCAR's
success is its sheer simplicity.
Because, here I am, sitting
inside a space frame cage,
basically covered in steel sheeting.
Up front is a bellowing
V8 push rod engine
that kicks out 600 horsepower,
slaved to the rear axle
by this gigantic prop shaft.
It sits on these great,
big Goodyear bags of rubber
that's gluing me to the track
when I wind the engine up.
Given an open stretch,
easily I can bust it past 200.
And that's enough to keep
a helicopter or a drone
or pretty much whatever it is
that is coming at me
from an aerial attack, on its toes.
Gonna get the hammer down, baby!
Shake and Bake! Shake and Bake!
I just love this car.
It reminds me of the good
old days I had here
racing in the ASCAR series,
when I won the European championship,
and set the lap record,
which still stands.
So, this NASCAR has super speed,
so it gets a massive tick in the box,
in terms of evading aerial attack.
And it can maintain
those speeds for extended periods,
so, another important tick there.
The only thing that is troubling me,
when I'm travelling in a straight line,
I have to turn the steering
wheel quite a long way to the right.
That's because this car is built
to turn left and kind of only left.
So, what I'm gonna do is
take it onto the infield
and see how it fares when I turn right.
It's so unstable
and the brake pedal is so stiff.
Jeez.
Okay, that wasn't very good
or dignified.
The brakes just aren't
designed to be leant on that hard,
because you hardly brake on the oval.
Because the wheels are pointing
the wrong way, when I turn right,
you just get this massive understeer,
touch the throttle
and the back end lights up,
because the axle's pointing
the wrong way as well.
It's like driving, I don't know...
A wheelie bin.
Here we go.
There's another tight hairpin.
I'm dreading this.
Keep turning, keep turning,
nothing's happening.
I think I'll be doing that all day long.
I love this baby, but I think I'll have
to retire it and find something else.
Something like that looks pretty nice.
Now, I know Barry said no old cars,
but if it was good enough for Steve
McQueen in Bullitt, it'd be rude not to.
Now, this is a bit more like it!
A proper American muscle car.
The 1965 Ford Mustang was built to
chew up road courses like this one.
Now I should have no problem
tackling a few lefts and rights.
I love these old cars.
You can feel the heritage of it.
You can smell the leather.
You can smell some gasoline,
actually, to be honest.
You've got lots of movement in the Tyre
that, really, you can embrace it
and drive the car to its limit.
I drove a car just like this one
in Fast and Furious,
chasing through the streets of London.
Now, that high-pitched
sound you're hearing
is the inside wheel spinning,
so there's obviously...
There's no lock diff
in the back putting traction
through both rear tyres, which is
not good for making forward progress.
It's, uh, pretty spongy
and not really that stable,
and the jelly-like suspension...
Well, you can't exactly say
it corners like it's on rails.
Oh!
It's all right, granddad.
The beauty of the '65 Mustang, though,
is it does look the part,
and I'll give it that.
But I don't think
I'll get many points for that
when I'm under attack from live rounds,
from whatever it is that
Barry's got in store for me.
And as much as I love this track
and these machines,
my search is going to
have to Cary on elsewhere,
because I think that when
it really comes down to it,
these old boys are going to let me down.
You have one new message.
Ben, don't think I'm not
monitoring your every move.
I told you, no old cars.
Stop disobeying orders
and carry out the mission.
Otherwise, I will be forced
to take extreme measures.
Now, as much as
I love old school American muscle cars,
those ones just threw up far
more questions than answers.
They are totally impractical,
fragile even by modern standards.
But, what I do still need is something
with the NASCAR top speed
that corners like it's on rails.
In short, what I think
I need is a supercar.
And there's none more capable
or more loaded with technology
than the one I'm driving next.
Welcome to the future.
This is the 650S,
the latest creation from McLaren
and a quantum leap
in terms of car design.
Every inch of this technical marvel
has been engineered
to make it go faster than its rivals.
From the integrated
front splitter that creates downforce,
to these unique door blades that help
generate incredible grip and balance.
And then, there's the engine,
a twin-turbo V8 warp drive
that propels the 650S to
a top speed of 207 miles per hour.
Now, that really is
flying machine speed.
Now, I'm fortunate enough to have driven
well, nearly every
supercar in the modern era,
from Bugatti to Ferrari, Aston Martin
to Lamborghini, all of them.
And they all have one thing
very much in common,
which is that they're
different to this McLaren,
because this car is truly unique,
in that it has liquid suspension,
and I'm not joking.
It's got hydraulic fluid that rushes
across the suspension very, very quickly,
and responds when you need to shore up
some support in a corner.
And it's absolutely incredible to drive,
because it's so responsive.
And if you're wondering where
this mythical technology comes from,
well, of course,
it comes from Formula 1.
McLaren have been involved
at the sharp end since the '60s,
and a lot of the active
technology on this car
was banned from Formula 1,
because it was an unfair advantage.
But all is fair in love, war,
supercars and stunt sequences.
So their loss is my gain.
And the other good thing about
Formula 1 technology is that it's tough.
This car is made from
a carbon fibre mono cell body
that sits around
the driver like a cocoon.
So it's fantastically
protective in a crash,
as well as giving you
the support in the corners.
Now, that should be good for taking
a bullet or five, if it comes to that.
With this kind of technology,
the 650S can accelerate to
60 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds,
and come to a dead stop
in just under 29 meters.
Now, some of those figures
are a little bit hard to comprehend,
so what I need to do
is a practical experiment
to show you just
how mind-blowing the McLaren really is.
This is an Audi A4 S Line,
the kind of car that typically
flashes you to get out of the way
of the fast lane on a motorway.
It's a tidy little car.
What I'm gonna do
is accelerate from 0 to 60,
and back to 0 as fast as I can,
and I'll jump in the 650S
and we'll compare the difference.
So, into sport mode.
Off we go.
Here we go it's 40, 50...
And 60!
Ah, pretty good for German engineering.
Very impressive braking.
Now, it's time to hop in
the McLaren and see the difference.
Now, in the Audi, that launch
was similar to a sort of
fast getaway from the traffic lights.
But in the McLaren, when this launches,
its gonna be like a space shuttle.
Apollo 13. No, Interstellar
is a better example.
So, get it into D,
set the launch control on.
Okay, so it's ready.
All I have to do is floor it.
And the turbo spools up, it's ready,
and I just dump the brake and we're off!
Oh, the braking, blimey.
Literally, you're peeling
the back of your head off the chair,
and the next thing is you're trying to
keep your nose off the dashboard.
And the distance compared to the Audi,
this is half the space.
0 to 60, back to naught
in hardly any space at all.
The McLaren certainly
has the straight line speed
to escape an aerial threat.
But, does it have
the manoeuvrability I need as well?
A striking feature of this car
is the aerodynamics.
Of course, McLaren
calls it the Active Aero.
Get on the brakes,
it pops up like a barn door,
acting as an air brake and stabilising
the car with extra downforce
to push the rear into the deck
and give you maximum braking force.
It's like having an R2-D2 on your shoulder,
setting X Foils into attack position.
Really incredible.
And it gives you
the confidence to attack these corners.
At the heart of this ship
is an ultra lightweight V8 engine,
powered with two turbochargers.
You just hear those
spooling up behind you,
there's this beautiful whistling sound
when you lay down the power.
This car only takes 5.7 seconds
to reach 100 miles an hour.
It's ridiculously fast.
The supercars of yesteryear
took that long to get from 0 to 60.
That engine just keeps on pushing
this car all the way up to 207 miles an hour.
So I love it.
It seems to be almost unbreakable.
Of course the question is,
will it be good enough for Barry?
Well, stopping power is, well, unbelievable,
acceleration, yep, phenomenal.
Handling-wise,
it's totally out of this world.
I think the other thing to
think about is, uh, off road.
Hmm, that could be interesting.
Right, now, there's an off-road course
around here somewhere.
Here we go. Bit of a ski jump.
Let's give this a try.
Whoa, there's some nasty gravel.
Don't want to chip the paint
on this baby.
And I don't want
the dust going in the air intake either.
The ride height on the McLaren
is not exactly high.
There's a bit of a dip,
let's have a... Whoa!
Well, that's enough.
That's going to rip the splitter off.
Right, I can't get over that.
As painful as it is to admit,
the McLaren 650S may not be
the ideal tool for off-roading.
So, I think this is going to
have to come off the menu.
Sorry, baby,
let's get you back off here.
What an amazing car.
The McLaren is just
a feat of engineering and design.
It's as good as anything I've ever driven
in terms of balance and performance.
And if this chase sequence
was purely on the road,
with no evasive manoeuvres
or hand brake turns,
the 650S would be my choice.
But I think I need something
with just a bit more all-round capability.
In fact, I think if
I drove it up on to the set,
Barry would probably kill me,
and then he'd steal the keys.
The thing that is starting to nag me a bit,
though, is this aerial attack business.
I really haven't got a clue
what I'm up against or how to evade it.
I think I'm gonna have to do
some serious research.
This is the Extra 300
aerobatic stunt plane.
Powered by
a 300 brake horsepower engine,
it has a top speed
in excess of 250 miles per hour.
But it's the sheer manoeuvrability
and handling of this thing that makes it
the F1 car of air race planes.
And this one has been
fitted with two seats.
I think you can probably
see where this is going.
My wingman for the day
is former RAF fast jet pilot
Mark Greenfield.
With over 20 years of
aerobatics coaching under his belt,
including a stint running the world-famous
Empire Test Pilot school,
he's a real-life top gun.
- Are you ready?
- I'm ready. Let's do it.
Okay, power's coming on.
So, that's us airborne.
That did not take long, did it?
No, not at all.
Once airborne, Mark doesn't hesitate
to show me what the plane can do.
Ah...
I hate you already.
Well, I admit I was, uh...
Obviously the whole reason
of coming up here is to try and gauge
how I'm going to fare in a car
against something in the air.
And, uh, I'm not sure if I'm feeling
as confident after that.
And things generally
got worse from there.
Oh, my God.
I don't know what just happened,
but I'm glad that it's over.
I was starting to realise
I could be in serious trouble.
But, the whole thing with a car is that
I can stop, whereas you can't.
Well, it depends
what you mean by stopping.
If you can brace yourself and
I'll show you how we'll stop
relative to the ground in three seconds.
I don't know if I'm gonna like this.
Okay, so that's effectively
a right angle turn there.
- Yeah
- And so, the movement
over the ground was...
uh, pretty much 0.
I just feel like
you've got a whole range of tools
with which to punish me
while we're up here, and...
I don't think that I did anything to you
in a former life to justify that.
As it turned out, though,
Mark had been saving the best until last.
The Cravat, a highly-dangerous
aerobatic manoeuvre
which sends the plane into a wild spin,
twisting around and around in the vertical
whilst tumbling at the same time.
Okay, so, we're gonna pull up
gently into the vertical,
and we're about to go direct...
How was that?
I think, what you've done there is,
you've taken a boy's dream
and you've turned that into a nightmare.
I have your best interests at heart,
but I do want to make sure you understand
the capabilities of an aeroplane.
Mark's demonstration has proven to me
just how formidable
this aerial attack might be.
If we reverse the roles,
and you had to choose a car
to get away from an aeroplane,
what would you choose?
Well, I'd want something that
is very manoeuvrable
and very agile
and tight turning circle would be good.
Lots of power and something that's
camouflaged to match its surroundings.
Next, Mark decided to show me
how devastating a strafing run
would be at 250 miles per hour.
Here we go, rolling in.
Wow, that's amazing,
when you see the ground open up like that.
This is quite low!
There's just no denying it.
A plane is faster, more agile
and more lethal than
I could ever have imagined.
If Mark had been hunting me in the plane,
I would have had nowhere to hide.
Well, thank you very much.
I think I've learned
all I need to know about...
An acrobatic, aerobatic
wizard like yourself.
So, I hope I never meet you again.
Cos if you're working for the other
side, I'm in deep trouble.
Oh...
The ground is still moving
under my feet.
- You're a horrible, horrible man.
- It might do that for a little while.
Yeah, I'm not doing that again.
You have one new message.
Ben, I hired you to find me
a car, not a damn plane.
Stop trying to second-guess me.
That just makes me angry.
And trust me, you do not want that.
As unpleasant as that experience was,
it has given me some idea
of what I might be facing out there.
But I need to get on with this
because the clock is ticking.
And it's not helping me
with Barry's anger management issues.
Now, the stunt plane has given me an idea
about the type of car I might want to choose.
I've got one in mind now
for the underground scene
that could fit the bill and just about
give my attackers the slip.
It's 6:30 in the morning and, as instructed,
I've arrived on foot at this dockside,
where, apparently,
I'll be met by someone, hopefully.
And that someone is Michelle Westby,
a Drift Cup Competitor,
and my guide into the world of drifting,
the motorsport that's
taking the world by storm.
- Hi, Michelle. That's mega.
- Hi.
- Thank you.
- It's a great location...
And great big space. It's just like
San Tropez, but with concrete.
Beautiful location,
lovely smooth surface here...
- Perfect for drifting.
- Excellent.
I've got a first lesson for you as well.
I'm gonna take you over now to meet
the British Drift Champions,
and they're going to
give you quick crash course in drifting.
- Beauty. Cool. Cool.
- Let's go.
So, let me introduce you
to JapSpeed Drift Team and their drivers.
First up, we have Paul "Smokey" Smith,
Super Pro Drift British Champion of 2012
and one of the hardest
competitors on the scene.
Next up, we have Shane Lynch.
Irishman Shane made the switch
from circuit racing
to drifting in 2007 and
has not looked back since.
So, what I've arranged for you
is for Smokey to let you know
all you need to know about drifting.
- Smashing.
- And then you'll be battling it out
with Shane after, whilst me
and Smokey look on and judge a winner.
Sweet, let's do it.
- Smoke.
- All right.
Lovely stuff, good to
meet you, yeah. Brilliant.
Shane. Looks like a biter. So...
But we will tangle later, me and you.
Teach you some manners, boy. Oh, yeah.
Although my day job involves
quite a lot of drifting,
I've never done it competitively.
So I need to know what
the judges are looking for.
That's mega. And what kind of
things are you doing
to sort of, like, unseat the other driver,
cos you're in attack mode.
You're both in a tandem drift
and it's judged by a pair of judges.
So what are they looking for?
Well, they are looking for
general speed around the course.
- It's not a race.
- Yeah.
But they do like to see you going through
the course as fast as you possibly can.
So speed is important,
so it's not all about sliding.
It's not all about sliding.
It's controlling the power
and getting that power to the ground...
Yes, you're spinning the wheels, but you want
to be constantly moving forward.
And what about Shane, then? Do you know
any tricks to making him uncomfortable?
- If you go in and you're on his door...
- Yeah.
...he'll know you mean business.
And I think that could take the win.
- That's mega. Very cool.
- Yeah.
Now, when I do this with Shane,
can I tap him out the way, knock him off?
Don't crash into him,
judges don't like that...
- But you can rub him...
- Is it against the rules?
- Against the rules.
- It's not against my rules.
I do it all the time on the track.
- Really?
- Yeah.
All right, all right.
So, I have to do it fair and square,
loads of grip, loads of speed
and try and intimidate him.
Yeah, get as close as you can,
but don't hit him.
All right.
With the demonstration over,
it's time to take the wheel.
Well, I don't know how many points
I'm going to get for style,
but I'm just about
making it around this course.
But I don't feel I'm doing it
quite as neatly as Smokey.
Quayside, loads of toys.
This car is just so drivable,
it's unreal.
It feels like you can just
kick this thing anywhere.
550 horsepower, it's just so precise.
You can see why they tune these cars
so specifically for drifting.
Everything is just perfectly tuned,
but I can't stop sliding.
This doesn't feel very fast,
but it does feel spectacular.
Does feel like I could take it anywhere,
maybe even under that truck,
give it a go.
Impressive.
This could be the baby.
It's definitely the most fun car
I have ever driven, without a doubt.
Loads of power, super precise, I'm sold.
- Is that all right?
- That'll do.
Let's take him on, man.
I'm gonna take Shane down the town.
- I think you can do it.
- You reckon?
- Yeah
- Really?
I think it's different with
one than with two, isn't it?
- Yeah, it's a little bit different.
- All right.
- We'll see how you get on.
- Fair enough.
- Where is he? That way?
- Over there.
Mystery man.
Guys. Shane, you're to lead.
Ben, you must follow as close
to Shane's rear quarter as possible.
Shane, you ready? Ben, you ready?
Go!
Just when our epic battle
was heating up, disaster struck.
Shane's super charger on his
modified Nissan 370Z disintegrated,
resulting in catastrophic engine failure,
bringing our competition to an end.
It was just as well, really, because my
Silvia wasn't sounding too clever either.
Broken the diff. Mind you,
my pain is not as bad as Shane's.
This looks like a super charger belt,
another piece here.
We could try and knit
this together, mate.
That would make a lovely paperweight.
Technically... What about that?
That's default win, isn't it?
- No.
- His breakage is worse than mine.
- No.
- What do you mean "no"?
Do these things really break this often?
They do, unfortunately.
That's why we carry spares.
Spares... What do you mean "spares"?
Spares?
Barry hasn't got time for spares.
Where's he going?
These things are very unreliable, clearly.
And that's not gonna work well.
They're also quite slow, because...
It's great, their drifting,
they're amazing, they're spectacular
but you're going sideways,
you're not going forwards that quickly.
Top speed, 80 miles an hour...
Where is he... Where am I supposed to go?
Broken car. I'll follow him.
That came close, but no cigar.
The drift car made all the right noises,
but with that lack of
top speed and dodgy reliability,
I'd just be dead meat.
Adding some heat to the situation
is the abusive messages
I'm getting on my phone
from Barry, and the elephant in the room
is the small matter of finding a car
that actually can go fast off-road.
It's time to head west.
Hidden deep within
a rural valley in mid-Wales
lies over 10 miles
of demanding off-road track,
a network of punishing gravel roads,
which makes the perfect
testing ground for this...
The Ariel Nomad, an insane creation
that wouldn't look out of place
on the set of a Mad Max movie.
Ten years in the making,
this is the latest offering
from track day heroes, Ariel,
famous for their road-based
rocket ship, the Atom.
This machine is their idea
of what an off-road vehicle should be,
and it might just fit the bill.
Ariel will say that this car
will accelerate from 0 to 60 miles an hour
in just 3.4 seconds.
Now, that's Ferrari Enzo territory,
and if that's the case, these baddy soldier
people are in for some serious trouble.
That's first.
And that's second,
and that's straight to 62 miles an hour.
Like me, you're probably wondering
how the hell it does that.
Well, it's not doing it
with brute force,
because this engine
only pops out 235 horsepower,
which is practically a lawnmower.
Powered by a 2.4 litre Honda engine,
and it doesn't have a
supercharger or a turbo.
It's just good, old-fashioned torque.
The beauty of it is in
the power-to-weight ratio,
because the car
only weighs 570 kilograms,
which is about half a Ford Focus.
65% of that weight
is over the rear axle,
where you need it for traction because
this is rear-wheel-drive only.
I really thought that
would kill the steering,
but it doesn't.
This thing is so agile,
and just fires you
out of these corners, it's ridiculous.
Part of the grip story is from these
three-way adjustable dampers,
and these amazing all-terrain tyres,
that just eat the landscape
and spit it out the back.
Whoo!
It's almost easy to forget
why I came here in the first place,
which is to assess whether this baby
has got what it takes
to escape an aerial assault.
In terms of sheer straight line speed,
136 miles an hour...
Okay, it's not the
fastest thing in the world,
but you could pretty much
drive over anything at 80 miles an hour.
The thing that lets it down though,
there's just nothing protecting
the car's vital parts.
The engine is just covered
in the same plastic they use
to build traffic cones.
It's hardly bulletproof.
And I'm expecting some
serious flak from the sky.
It's with a very heavy heart,
but I'm gonna have to
say no to the Nomad.
However, I've got one more supercar
from the off-road world
that might just do the job.
This, as you can
probably tell, is a Mini,
but it couldn't be further away
from the run-of-mill estate agent chariot
you see every day in the High Street.
This one competes in
the World Rally Cross Championship,
one of the roughest
and toughest race series on the planet.
Okay, it's time to unleash
the fury of this baby.
There's quite a complicated
launch procedure.
I've got to hold of my
finger over the launch button.
Okay, I've got first gear,
gonna turn the anti-lag on.
There we go, I can already
feel the power surge.
Here we go.
Oh, my God, it's unbelievable power.
The kick in the back you get
is like from a Formula 1 car,
that does 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds,
up to 100 in five.
Absolutely ridiculous.
This model was originally designed
for the World Rally Championship,
but then they added an
enormous turbo so big...
Whoa!
...they had to give it a name.
Its name is Gerrard,
and when Gerrard gets angry,
you go very, very fast.
It kicks out 500 horsepower,
which is twice the Nomad had,
lancing itself very neatly
through this four-wheel-drive system,
just hammering me down this road.
Whoo!
It's also got this wonderful handbrake,
which has rear diff release,
which I admit, sounds like some kind
of bowel control problem.
What it allows me to do is
lock up the rear wheels
whilst applying the power
and just trim the nose
of the car into the corner
whilst accelerating,
and it's just incredible.
I'm very reassured by the fact that
this car is covered in Kevlar,
the stuff they make
bulletproof jackets from.
There's a whole shield
in front of the engine bay
and in the rear quarter panels,
so if I do come under fire,
I've got some pretty good protection there.
I've got a good feeling about this Mini.
I think this is the one.
Oh, hang on a minute.
Team are calling me in.
That was awesome. Thank you so much.
- Is everything okay?
- No, we need to refuel.
What, did you half fill it or
something, or was that a full tank?
- That is a full tank.
- You serious?
I'm serious.
Well, five minutes isn't going to cut
a car chase. There's no way.
This car had everything I wanted,
and now I've got to
start completely from scratch.
Ugh!
Hi, Barry.
Ben, don't mention names
over a cellular phone!
And you know why I'm calling.
Have you found me a car?
Uh, no, not quite.
What do you mean, "Not quite"?
Well, I've tested some amazing stuff
but nothing that's quite right for the job.
You really need to sort this.
Fourteen hours, find me that car!
I will, I promise. I've got a plan.
Barry... Hello?
Bye... Bye, Barry.
Thanks for calling.
Here are the final four cars
I'm assessing for this mission.
And to help me make the big decision,
I've brought in stunt driving
heavyweight, Martin Ivanov,
known as "the Russian."
A multiple-award-winning stunt
performer and driver,
we met on the set of Quantum of Solace,
and he's the one man I trust
when it comes to a car chase.
Martin, thanks for coming all the way from
Moscow to test these cars out.
You know the brief.
The first one we've got is the Audi S8,
and it should be good because it's,
you know, a true action movie favourite.
Yeah, perfect, this is the car.
No more searching needed.
Okay, great, that's good confidence
but we have got more in the car park,
so, this is just one of the four.
No, no, no, no. This is the car.
Now, to settle this argument,
we need to get out on the track.
The amazing thing with this car
is when you get into it,
it feels really big, it's like being
in a tank but it's so fast with it.
It's got twin-turbocharged,
V8 engine, 520 horsepower.
And because it's Quattro, I think
it's gonna be almost as good off-road
as putting its power down on the tarmac.
So I think you've got a point.
This could be a fantastic car.
But we are gonna test some more cars
because I still think
one of those ones in the garage
could be better than this one.
Yeah. Let's see.
And here's the next contender.
From super saloon to super car,
this is the Noble M600.
This could be a hero
or a villain's car with its mean looks.
But this beast is all
about killer performance.
Now, the reason I've chosen this Noble
is because it delivers true performance
in a very, very simple old-fashioned way
and I'm talking as basic
as horse and cart.
It goes from 0 to 60 in three seconds,
and just keeps going
until you get to 225 miles per hour,
which surely is enough to defeat
anything by land, sea or air.
I have to admit, aerodynamics are a
little bit light on the Noble,
which does make it quite
skittish at high speed
but it's also what makes it so fast.
Just look what it's like in the corners.
It's just balletic.
And the harder you drive it,
the more you get out of it.
I love this car.
I think this could be a winner.
Release the Russian.
I am coming.
I almost feel sorry for Martin,
in that I'm going to break his
spirit right at the beginning
because the advantage this
car is pulling on the Audi is sizeable.
It's killing it.
The poise in these chicanes is where
I really seem to break away from him.
Martin's car is leaning heavily,
blistering its front tyres no doubt,
as it tries to keep up with the Noble.
I'm sure he'll get over it
on his flight home.
Bye-bye, Martin.
Ugh! So much for
catching me, Martin. Where were you?
This car is a joke.
- What do you mean?
- Look at the ground clearance.
It's not that low, is it?
Your chase will end at first speed bump.
Well, let's go try
another one then. Come on.
- Yeah, let's do it.
- Grumpy.
Next is the Jaguar F-Type.
A stunning GT, which is giving
Aston Martin a run for its money.
It certainly looks the part,
but does it have it where it counts?
This is the Jaguar F-Type S,
a supercharged version of the V6 engine,
knocking out 374 brake horsepower.
It's got a shorter wheelbase
than that massive Audi,
which should give this the advantage
in the off-road part of the chase,
and it's got some ground clearance,
which was the Achilles heel for the Noble.
So, this has got to be
a strong candidate.
Now, unbelievably,
in terms of acceleration,
the Audi actually has
the edge over this Jag,
but this has longer legs,
and it can stretch them
to 171 miles an hour.
And it's great at drifting.
Which means I can throw loads of smoke
in the face of my would-be pursuers.
It's just so much fun, this car. Ahhh!
Release the Russian.
Come to papa.
It's much, much more
evenly-matched this time.
I've got a little bit more pick-up and
traction, just coming out of the corners
but as soon as we get on these straights,
he is closing right up on me.
This does not bode well.
Let's try the old smoking-tyre manoeuvre
and see if I can push him back a little bit.
Come on, Jag!
I've got my foot to the floor.
I can't stop him.
Ahhh, Martin!
Oh, I thought you'd be smug.
- Victory!
- I know what you're gonna say.
I mean, you kind of won,
but only in the straight bit.
- This is still a good car.
- But I won.
- All right, well, I've got one more, yeah?
- Yeah, your last chance.
Yeah, you're so tough.
I've saved the best till last.
The BMW M3 is a legend
of Teutonic performance.
The M3 has been trouncing its rivals,
on and off the race track,
for nearly four decades,
but is it the all-rounder I need?
Now this is BMW's brand new M3,
the pinnacle of German engineering,
a car that even Martin would approve of.
BMW have given this M3
a brand new engine.
They ditched the V8 for a lighter
straight 6 turbocharged unit,
firing out 425 horsepower.
It's an incredible car to drive.
You've got so much control
under your right foot.
Fantastic cornering.
And you can still drive it like
an absolute hooligan when you want to.
This car is great.
Deploy the Russian.
You don't know the power of dark side.
Now, instantly, I get the feeling
that we're much more closely-matched.
Both these cars have got
incredible poise through the corners.
He's hanging on, but it's nothing like
as deadly as it was with the Jag.
Even in this big straight, the Audi,
I can just see him closing in.
Argh! Braked a bit late.
Oh, you're close, Martin,
but you're not quite close enough.
Yeah.
Well, that was a workout, but one
of these cars definitely is a winner,
and I think I'm sitting in it.
Well, I think that was draw, yes?
I think even you'd agree with that.
Well, hallelujah,
let's break out the champagne.
I think this is the winner.
No.
Why?
Look at the colour.
Under aerial attack,
it's perfect target.
Well, thanks. I'm not sure I agree.
Well, I've got to pick something.
If you had to pick
any car other than the Audi,
which one would you pick?
Audi.
That's not helpful, is it?
Because I need to pick one.
This is it, this is the final reckoning.
I think I've made a decision, though,
which is it's got to be something else.
Today is the day of reckoning.
I really thought the BMW had it all,
but it just doesn't cover every base,
and now I'm gonna go
with a car, in my gut,
I'm convinced is the right one.
No more second-guessing.
Let's do this.
My final choice is quite simply an icon,
a thoroughbred sports car
that's pure Hollywood.
The Ford Mustang combines
European handling with American muscle,
making it the ultimate all-rounder,
and an unstoppable force.
Rogue vehicle, rogue vehicle!
So there you have it, folks,
the Ford Mustang GT.
Loads of grunt for getting
yourself out of trouble.
It's got a clutch
and a handbrake for evasive measures,
ample space in the trunk for an RPG 7
and it's super fast off-road
as well as on it.
I just hope the sequence
was enough to keep Barry... Oh!