Top Gear (2002) s22e04 Episode Script
M3 vs. i8
Tonight, a BMW i8 at full chat in the Yorkshire Moors the cream of Hollywood on our track and a pointless thing about old Land Rovers.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you, everybody, thank you! Thank you so much.
Thank you, and welcome.
Welcome to what is, for the first time in many years, an actual car show.
We've packed it with many facts and a lot of informations.
And we're starting the ball rolling with this, the Mercedes SLS.
This was one of my favourite cars and I was very sad when they stopped making it.
But, happily, there is now a replacement, which I haven't been driving on the track because James has.
This is what they've come up with.
It's called the AMG GT.
And it costs between £97,000 and £120,000.
Now, I have to be entirely honest with you - when I woke up this morning and got out of bed to come and drive this car, it was with a certain amount of disquiet.
I've always thought that AMG Mercedes are a bit - as my mother would say - unnecessary.
I don't like the Stormtrooper body kit look.
I don't really like those pseudo-special forces names like "SLS" and "Black".
Jeremy likes them a lot.
With this car, however, you sense that something is different, that everything's a bit more grown-up.
See, their last coupe, the SLS, had a massive, and again, not entirely necessary, 6.
2-litre V8.
This car also has a V8, but it's a brand-new one and it's a much more modest four litres.
Because of that, you might expect it to take a little longer to get from A to B.
However ENGINE ROARS The 0-60 time in that 6.
2-litre SLS was 3.
8 seconds.
On this, the four-litre car, it is exactly the same.
The top speeds are almost exactly the same as well, both up in the high 190s.
Strewth! And AMG has achieved this by using brains to make the brawn.
This car has two turbochargers.
Normally, turbochargers would be bolted onto the outside of the engines, but on this car, they live inside the V of the engine.
What this means is the engine is more compact, the turbos are more efficient.
So this car costs £50,000 less than the old SLS, it uses a lot less fuel and it still goes just as quickly.
That is what they call on The Apprentice a "win-win".
And then there's the styling, which also has a new level of sophistication, with an interior that's more James Bond than Fast And Furious.
On the outside, it's much the same story.
These doors are perfectly conventional in and out sort of doors.
They are NOT like those idiotic gull-wing things you get on the SLS, which makes it look as if it's sniffing its own armpits.
This rear spoiler is actually an option, but even that, by AMG's standards, is quite discreet.
In fact, the whole thing is quite pretty.
Quite classic, even.
And now we must move on to cornering, an activity where AMG normally scores maximum points for mentalness.
This is, when all's said and done, a 503 horsepower rear-wheel drive muscle car, and that sounds like a recipe for extreme trickiness.
In fact, you can corner quickly in this thing, and without soiling your trousers.
TYRES SCREECH Which, once again, is thanks to intelligent engineering.
In a normal car, the engine and the gearbox, they're just dead weight hanging in there and they move around a bit and sort of spoil the balance as you go round corners.
In this car, the mountings for all that stuff are active.
So, as you go through a bend, they stiffen up to keep all that weight in check.
It's a bit like the way a cat can walk along the top of a fence using its tail to keep itself in balance.
However, if, like Jeremy, you want to devour your back tyres in one sitting, you still can.
TYRES SCREECH Yes, thank you! And then, there's the noise.
Are you ready? Here we go.
ENGINE GROWLS HE BARKS HE BARKS I hate it when my prejudices are demolished, but this card is giving me the fizz.
What I like most of all is that the GT is cleverly designed to be Jekyll and Hyde.
I'm just going to quieten it down.
Turn off the manual change, the noisy exhaust.
We'll put it back into comfort mode, comfort suspension There you go.
When you turn all that off, it turns into this incredibly civilised, long-legged cruiser.
I like what they've done.
They've got rid of the Andy McNab names and all that nonsense and given us an AMG for grown-ups.
I'm glad I got out of bed this morning.
ENGINE ROARS CHEERING It's what I've been saying for a long time.
So there you go, May.
Ha-ha-ha! I've been saying for ages, AMG Mercs are brilliant.
Yes, there are couple of massive problems with this one, though.
~ What? ~ Well, firstly, it reminds me of you.
~ LAUGHTER ~ The second one is that, to be honest, for not much more than half the price of this, you could have a Nissan GT-R, which, as we have established, is the finest car in the world.
It's certainly up there, I will grant you that.
But I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll sort it out on the track, OK? We'll see how fast this one can get round.
That of course means handing it over to our tame racing driver.
Some say that last week, he won a BAFTA for Best Original Smell.
LAUGHTER And that when he dies, he thinks he'll go to Devon.
LAUGHTER All we know is, he's called The Stig! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And he's not in the car.
Oh, yes, Stig not happy about Ricciardo's lap He's punched him! He's punched him! That's bad.
He's really not happy about that fast lap.
He's in the car now, and he's off.
A wheel-spinning start.
Obviously in a furious temper.
through the light but strong carbon fibre prop shaft.
Oh, he's vandalised the first corner.
He is really very annoyed.
But he is driving beautifully.
You know I can't smile without you Another slice of the calming Carpenters there.
Through Chicago, looking very fast and very controlled.
Now Hammerhead.
James says this car can suffer from snap understeer, so let's see what happens.
No, not a thing.
It's worth remembering, of course, that James suffers from being a moron.
LAUGHTER .
.
I feel sad when OK, into the Follow Through, banging up the double clutch gearbox, letting the perfect balance of the transaxle layout do its stuff.
Just a stab of brakes past the tyres.
Stig pretending the pedal is an Australian's face.
Two corners to go Oh, he's hot through there but very tidy.
Only Gambon left.
Laser-guided through there, and across the line! CHEERING I have the time here.
Ready?! It did a 1.
17.
5.
And that is Well, look.
That's quicker than the old SLS Black and, ahem, quicker than the Nissan GT-R.
Which shows, James, that you don't know what you're talking about.
Hmm, interesting.
Didn't actually feel like it would be that fast when I was driving it, to be honest.
No, that's because yeah, YOU were driving it.
LAUGHTER Right, and now we must do the news.
And we start with big news.
This is the biggest news we've had in a long time, I would say.
Because Ford, for the very first time, is making the Mustang in right-hand drive and will be bringing it to the UK officially.
You can buy them over here.
There it is.
Two versions - you can have a four-cylinder EcoBoost for £28,000, or for £33,000, a five-litre V8.
Mm, the one I want, though, is the Shelby, the 350 ~ GT, yeah, yeah, yeah.
~ .
.
or something like that.
It's 520 horsepower V8.
~ That's the one.
There it is, look.
~ It looks brilliant.
But you can't, they're not bringing that one here.
~ They're not selling that one to us.
~ Why? ~ It's going to Canada in a year.
Yeah, I know, but so is the internet, but that But that's not coming here, no, we can't ~ Why won't they sell it to us? ~ I don't know.
But you must be very looking forward to a right-hand drive Mustang, Richard Hammond.
Yeah, you'd think No, not really.
Because I don't want a right-hand drive Mustang.
Once it becomes right-hand drive, it's like it's trying too hard to be British and sophisticated and something it's not.
I know what you mean.
It's like when Americans come over here and start using words like "bloody".
~ Yes! ~ Isn't it? ~ It's exactly that.
~ It is.
And they say, "I'm going to the bloody pub!" ~ It doesn't sound right.
It's the same.
~ Exactly, it is.
Or they say "mate".
They try and say "mate", but it just doesn't work.
Yes, cos they think we're Crocodile Dundee, ~ cos it's all the same, cos they haven't got atlases.
~ Yeah.
So that, realistically, should be called, now it's coming here, the "Ford Bloody Quid Mate".
LAUGHTER Should be its name! Ooh, now Can I just do a survey? How many people here enjoyed the ambulance film we did last week? AUDIENCE: Yes! OK, you see, the problem we have is that we've had an electronic communication from a man called Mr E36-Man-4000, who says, "Dear so-called Top Gear, I HATED your thing on ambulances.
"Why don't you stick to cars?" Shall we show Mr What's he called, Mr Hashtag? Shall we show him what this show would be like if we just talked about cars? ~ Yeah, OK.
~ Yeah, all right.
I tell you what I drove this week ~ Volkswagen Passat diesel.
~ Did you? ~ Mm.
Surprisingly comfortable.
I also drove an Audi TT.
~ Which is much nicer than you'd think.
~ OK.
Actually, I've been driving the new Porsche 911 Turbo, which is very fast but surprisingly quiet.
Oh, is it? Mm-hm.
LAUGHTER Um, Aston Martin have built a new one-off for a Bond film.
~ It's called the DB10.
~ Yeah, mm.
~ AUDIENCE: Ooh! ~ I don't think much of that, actually.
~ I don't like the way it looks.
~ No, I don't.
~ No, I do.
~ OK.
~ Erm, Vauxhall ~ LAUGHTER .
.
has a new car, the Corsa.
I've got nothing on that.
Shall we give up on car news? I'm going to take charge again, because I want to talk about something else, right? I want to talk about some experts who said last week they wanted to rip up all of Britain's railway lines and replace them with motorways that would then only be used by coaches.
~ And I think that would be a shame.
~ Why would that be a shame? Because I like having coaches on motorways.
~ Why? ~ Because you can drive alongside them and use their Wi-Fi.
Can you?! LAUGHTER You can, honestly! Have you not done that? It's fabulous.
My kids always say, "Daddy, Daddy, slow down to 70.
" ~ I mean, sorry, "Speed up to 70.
" ~ Yeah.
"Catch the coach, quickly, "so we can snapchat this picture of a poo I've done.
" They do! ~ So it's like a free roaming Wi-Fi? ~ Exactly! Do it on the way home.
It's incredibly cheap.
Now, a few years ago, we improved police cars, and last week, ~ we improved ambulances.
~ Yes, we did.
We are now the emergency service for the emergency services.
Yeah, we are.
That's what we are.
Quite a lot of people have written to us and said, "Right, "when are you going to improve fire engines?" Mm! No, but there's a No, actually We've looked into this and there's a problem, because if you have to build a vehicle big enough for all the water you need and pumps and ladders and buckets and six burly men, and women, in Wellingtons, what you end up with is a fire engine.
~ Yeah.
~ But, specifically, a British fire engine.
That's important.
Yeah, not one of those stupid American ones where all ~ the firemen stand on the outside.
~ They do! So you get there and there's nobody on board to put the fire out! Do you know what I like about the British fire engine? It says "Dennis" on the front.
Dennis is a reassuring name.
A Dennis would remember to return your lawn mower.
It is interesting, actually, because American fire engines have really stupid names.
I've got a picture of an American fire engine here.
~ Guess what that's called? ~ Fire Engine.
No, it's called The Igniter.
~ LAUGHTER ~ It is! ~ How does? "I've already got a fire!" ~ Exactly! It should be called The Extinguisher.
~ They've probably got an ambulance called The Haemorrhage.
~ Yes.
~ LAUGHTER ~ Right, earlier on, James had a go at a proper road test in a one-off car show ~ and now it's my turn.
~ Try not to muck it up.
No, no, no, relax, this is going to be a blizzard of facts because I'm going to talk about the new BMW M3.
It has a smaller engine than the old model, three litres rather than four.
It has two fewer cylinders, but it is turbo-charged, so you get a little bit more horsepower and 111 more torques.
That means it's four seconds a lap faster round our track than the old car.
And four seconds is a huge gulf because, remember, that was already five seconds a lap faster round the Ascari track in Spain than the equivalent Mercedes and Audi, so this is properly quick AND it's more economical, but, and this is the big one, is it nicer to drive? Well, here it is, slithering about on our track.
TYRES SCREECH Look at that.
I mean, that's just the M3 signature dish.
But, straightaway, I must tell you there is a bit of a niggle.
~ TYRES SCREECH ~ If you stick the tail out in a corner, which you can, easily, because it's an M3, you'll find it very hard to hold the drift because the power steering is now electric rather than hydraulic.
Going round a corner like this is like wrestling with the tail of an excitable crocodile.
It's not just hard to hold the slide, it's also hard to straighten up again afterwards.
See what I mean? Now, I admit, in the real world, this isn't going to be much of a problem ever, if I'm honest.
And anyway, you can solve it by taking the steering out of Sport Plus mode and putting it in Comfort mode.
Then everything is fine.
Oh, yeah! In fact, everything is more than fine, everything is absolutely sublime! I'm not going to beat about the bush, this car is utterly brilliant.
It's well made, it's got seating for four, it's got a decent-sized boot, it's comfortable, it's quiet, it's got lots of standard equipment.
In many ways, this car is like the perfect dog - it's loyal, it's cute, it doesn't chase sheep, it doesn't go wrong all the time and yet, if a burglar comes, it has the power to rip his throat out.
"Look at me! I'm an attack dog now! "I'm fierce and bitey!" And that really is that.
It is a fabulous, wonderful car and if you have £56,000 lying around, you should buy one immediately.
Or should you? Because today, we live in strange times.
Environmental times.
And BMW has another new car which reflects that.
It's one of the most talked-about cars in years and this is it.
It's called the i8 and it's a hybrid, which means it's powered by an electric motor and a tiny three cylinder, 1.
5 litre, turbo-charged petrol engine.
That doesn't sound like much of a recipe.
It sounds like a sort of glorified Toyota Prius, but let me give you the headline figures.
This car does 155mph and 134 miles to the gallon.
And because it's so economical, you get a £5,000 grant from the government if you buy one, it's exempt from the London Congestion Charge and the road-tax bill, as you can see here, is nil.
It really does sound, then, like this car answers everyone's prayers, but does it? Are pure-bred petrolheads like me really going to say, "Mm, yes, what I really want next is a three-cylinder hybrid?" Well, that is what I'm going to try and find out.
I'm going to set the satellite navigation for Whitby in North Yorkshire and, obviously, in a car as futuristic as this, you don't push buttons to do that, you trace the letters you want on this pad here, so, wuh .
.
huh .
.
ih tuh Ah-ha! OK.
'Whitby, North Yorkshire, guidance started.
' Now, the reason I've chosen Whitby is, A, you get the best fish and chips and the world there and, B, the M3 we saw earlier is waiting for me there, which means, when I arrive, I will face a simple choice.
Will I want to drive home in that or this? With the sat nav looking for the most economical route to Whitby, I put my sensible head on and settled down for a 200 mile fact-finding mission.
You have a choice of three driving modes.
Number one, electric drive.
That's the electric motor only.
It gives you a range of 20 miles, and probably enough for you to do your morning commute.
Then, if you move the gear lever over here, you engage sport mode and that means the electric motor and the petrol engine are working together to give 352 horsepower and it makes the car sort of firm and bitey and Nurburgringy.
But, since we are on the A1, I shall go for comfort mode.
Lovely.
'And it really was lovely.
' I know there is an electric motor in the front, driving the front wheels through a two-speed automatic gearbox.
I know there's a petrol engine at the back, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic gearbox.
I also know there is another small electric motor at the back, filling in the gaps and doing all sorts of clever things.
And yet, sitting here, this car feels no weirder to drive than that whatever it is, that hatchback thing there.
I've got a steering wheel, gear lever, accelerator, brake and Ken Bruce on the radio.
How normal is that?! BBC Radio 2! But there is a problem.
If you're driving in comfort mode, you're not really charging up the batteries and, eventually, they are going to go flat.
One solution is to turn off the motorway and charge them up at the mains, but, as you're about to see, this is not to be recommended.
"Connect your vehicle and validate.
" Look, I can operate a Hoover! Oh, this is stupid! Well, it must It must be charging.
It's plugged in, so I shall go and get a cup of coffee.
While we wait for the batteries to charge, let me show you this incredible app that you can get with your i8, OK? If I push that, I can set the air conditioning so the car is cool when I get back into it.
How amazing is that?! If I can also flash the headlights, so I could find it if I've lost it in a car park.
I can lock it.
I can unlock it.
I don't know why you'd want to do that remotely, but you can.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a feature on here that enables the i8 to find another i8 for a good time.
'After an hour, I went back to the car 'and found that the charging point hadn't worked.
' If you had a pure electric car, you would be completely stuffed, but this is not a pure electric car.
So I'm not.
I can either drive along without the batteries or I can put the gear lever over here to engage sport mode and then they are being charged up as I drive along.
What's more, in sport mode, the i8 is properly fast.
I scoffed when BMW said they were going to make a hybrid that was as fast as a 911 or a Chevrolet Corvette, but .
.
it really is! 'It's so fast that soon I was in the North.
' This is Doncaster.
This is where I grew up.
It was a mining town back then, but now look.
It's a wind farm.
Bit less romantic, the windmills, and they employ fewer people, but Time moves on, I guess.
'So far, then, the i8 had done well.
'But to find out if it could truly win the heart of the petrol head, 'I turned off the A1 and plunged into 'the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.
' DRAMATIC, SWEEPING MUSIC So, let's find out.
Oh, God above, this is good! This is a revelation! It's the lightness that staggers you most of all.
It's almost as though I'm steering using nothing but thought.
And because the heavy battery pack is located in the middle of the car, here, low down, it has the same centre of gravity as as a worm! Couple that to the four-wheel-drive system and, honestly, you can go round any corner at any speed that takes your fancy.
The harder I go, the faster I drive, the sharper I brake, the more electricity I'm making for the batteries.
If you get busted for speeding in this car, you get a thank-you letter from Greenpeace.
And rightly so! 'But before we get carried away with this environmental stuff, 'there's one important point we all need to remember.
' I've always had a fundamental problem with hybrids.
And it's this.
We all know the world has limited resources and we must do all we can to eke them out.
And you're not going to do that if you drive around in a car that has, effectively, two engines.
You don't solve the problem of conspicuous consumption by using conspicuous consumption.
The thing is, though, while you have to rape the world to make a car like that, the benefits of owning one for you and I, in the here and now, are immense, because that car That car is staggering.
It's breathtaking.
MUSIC: The Hovis Theme, New World Symphony by Dvorak It's nearly as breathtaking as that view.
'With the advert for Yorkshire over, I got back on the road.
' It is incredible to think that I'm now cruising into Whitby in silent electric mode, using electricity that I made by driving quickly on the moors.
The message really is very clear from this car.
If you want to save the planet, drive fast.
'After a short eco drive through the pretty fishing port of Whitby '.
.
I arrived in the harbour, where I faced a very difficult choice.
' Cod or haddock? I think cod.
'Then I faced an even more difficult choice.
'Which of these cars would I drive back to London?' This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make between cars, ever.
It's like the M3 is the best of where we've come from and the i8 is where going.
There must have been a moment in history when everybody had typewriters and typewriters had been around hundreds of years and they were brilliant, and then somebody came along with a laptop.
That is what's going on there.
No, I've made my mind up.
Bet you weren't expecting that! APPLAUSE APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH ~ What? ~ Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Let me make sure I got this straight.
~ You, let's be honest, are our resident dinosaur.
~ I am.
And you prefer the i8 to the M3? ~ No.
~ But in the film ~ Yes, I know.
I was wrong.
The thing is, I've had some time to do some thinking since then and there are one or two bits and bobs on the i8 that would drive you mad.
I mean, rear visibility is atrocious, the boot is microscopic, this window doesn't go all the way down, so you can't drive along with your arm hanging out and I discovered last week that an i8 has just been bought by Wayne Rooney.
Oh, no.
LAUGHTER ~ And it gets worse.
~ How can it get worse than that? Because, in a laboratory in Munich, it can do 134 miles to the gallon, but have a guess how many miles to the gallon I averaged.
~ 80? ~ No.
~ 79? ~ No! ~ 78? ~ No, James! I averaged 31 miles to the gallon.
And other i8 owners are reporting the same sort of thing and it only has a tiny little fuel tank, seven gallons, which means you're going to be stopping for fuel all the time.
So, when you said, "It's a laptop," ~ it's one of those really early-days laptops? ~ It is.
They are on the right road, make no mistake about that, but they are not there just yet.
So, anyway, let's move on, let's put a Star In Our Reasonably Priced Car.
Now, my guest tonight was Jordan Belfort's wife in The Wolf Of Wall Street, one of my favourite films of the modern age.
She is now in a new film and she's brought along her co-star, so please welcome Margot Robbie and a man called Will Smith! CHEERING Oh, heavens above! Look what we've got for you! Yeah, we got you as well.
~ Good to see you.
~ Good to see you both.
Margot, I'll go round here.
And relax.
~ Have a seat! Have a seat! ~ This is fantastic! ~ Wow! ~ Is it really fantastic? ~ This is great.
Cos I was going to begin by apologising for the trailers we have.
~ The trailers! Oh! Those trailers, yeah.
~ They're really nice.
~ You know ~ Will set his bar very high with trailers, though, so ~ Really? ~ Yes, his trailer is pimped.
I'm very serious about trailers.
The trailer, you know, it has to be, like, you know, you got to hook it up, have a stereo system, you know, it has to Yours had mirrors on the roof if I recall.
LAUGHTER, HE MOUTHS I'm not insinuating anything, I'm just saying! That's going to get in trouble! That's going to get us in trouble, there we go! Already in trouble where my mind's gone! ~ No, cos really, not that long ago, you were in Neighbours.
~ Yeah.
What interests me about Neighbours, which is an Aussie TV ~ I know what neighbours is! ~ Don't pretend you know.
Two days ago, they asked him what show I did in Australia, a very popular show, and you said it started with C.
~ I couldn't remember the name.
~ There's no C in it.
I just can't see Will Smith finishing his day going, "You know what, I think I'll watch Neighbours.
" "Ooh, 6.
30, my show's on!" ~ Russell Crowe started in that, didn't he? ~ Mm.
What's his name, Guy Pearce was another one.
Kylie is another one.
~ Yes, yes.
~ I was wondering, do you know Coronation Street? ~ Cos that's produced ~ I know all those shows, man! ~ You don't! And you won't because ~ I got the DVDs and everything! It's just unbelievable, I'm afraid.
I know all about this, the Coronation Street and Neighbours and all those.
EastEnders, yeah.
~ Now, em, you are over here, obviously, to promote a film.
~ Yes.
It's called Focus, but it isn't about the small Ford hatchback, which will have disappointed some people in here.
It's Well, it's a love story between you two, which is rather sweet.
~ Yeah.
~ It's interesting, it's My character plays a conman, a master thief, and part of being a master thief is he's a liar and he meets Margot's character, Jess, and falls madly in love and realises quickly that lying and loving don't go together too well.
They go together OFTEN, but they don't go together WELL.
~ I believe we have a clip, which we can show now.
~ OK.
~ This is a man's world ~ Are you working an angle? ~ I wouldn't trust him, if I were you.
~ But I should trust you? ~ You've got a problem.
~ I am going to kill you.
~ Kill me later.
~ You lost everyone's money, my money?! ~ Hey! ~ Wow! ~ Wow! ~ This is your mess.
~ I think you're losing it.
~ Whoa! Whoa! ~ Then why did you come up here? ~ Professional curiosity.
And I like boobs.
You know, I figured it was a win-win.
'At the end of the day, this is a game of focus.
' Did you notice when I had my shirt off? You noticed, didn't you? Did you see that shot? I just want to know if you saw the shot! That's what everyone took away from the trailer.
~ Margot had her trousers off.
~ Oh, yes! You saw that! ~ Slightly more distracting.
~ I get that.
I get that.
And I've seen you with no shirt on a million times, but I've never Well, I have seen Margot with no clothes on.
I've never seen you ~ This just got awkward.
~ It did.
Now, one of the things that make it even more awkward ~ is you filmed quite a lot of the movie in Argentina.
~ Yes.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER ~ How did that go for you? ~ For me? It was good.
It was good, man.
~ Argentina's fantastic.
~ Is it? LAUGHTER ~ What's wrong with Argentina? ~ What's wrong with Argentina? What happened? ~ Every ~ BLEEP ~ thing! LAUGHTER The thing is Well, I enjoyed it and best of luck with it.
~ Well, thank you, man.
~ When's it open? ~ When does it open? ~ 27th.
~ 27th.
~ February 27th.
~ Is it the 27th here? Yes! OK! Yes.
Now, we've got to get onto cars because you grew up on a farm in Australia, so you, presumably, have been driving since you were naught because it's such a vast area.
Yeah, it's huge, but, yeah, in our family, the rule was you could drive as soon as you could like, you know, physically reach the pedals and you could have the car on your own when you reached double digits, ~ so when you were ten, you were allowed to ~ Wow.
And I remember being nine years old and arguing with the parents, being like, "Guys, this is absurd.
"I'm not like" And they're like, "No, you're nine.
"You have to wait another year.
" And I was like, "This is "I can't believe this.
This is ridiculous.
" ~ Have you been out to the outback? ~ The out No, no, no.
I feel like you'd fit right in.
You'd just love it.
So it's a racial thing? You went racial.
LAUGHTER And, so, what was your first car? It was a candy apple-red IROC Z, a Camaro.
~ Apparently you don't have those here.
~ No, we don't.
No.
We have What's the word? Taste.
LAUGHTER I was thinking, "Maybe this would indicate you don't know about cars," and then I started to look into some of the lyrics.
~ Are you familiar with the lyrics of the early songs? ~ Oh, jeez.
I wasn't born.
~ In a song called Gettin' Jiggy Wit It ~ Yes.
I remember that.
Yeah, I know that one.
LAUGHTER I don't recognise that one.
It's got 850is.
~ Who's the kid in the drop? ~ Who else? ~ CROWD: Will Smith.
~ Will Smith.
~ Now, drop, I presume, means drop-top.
~ Drop-top, yes.
They never did a drop-top 850.
LAUGHTER It's a small problem.
No, no, hold on.
Now, see, he thinks he knows everything.
He thinks he knows everything.
~ In the United States, we do a thing where we customise our cars.
~ Yeah.
~ Can I just give you another one? ~ This is brilliant.
Just Cruisin'.
The Maestro.
Do you know the next bit? ~ Yes, yes, yes.
~ Nice flow.
~ Nice flow.
Hot like nitro.
~ Cool as ice, though.
~ Cool as ice, though.
~ That's a dichotomy.
~ Do you know what a Maestro is? ~ You've got one? There you go.
Oh, my God.
It is so awkward for me to hear you say my lyrics like that.
~ I'll bet.
~ No, it's making my eyes water.
We've done enough of this now.
We want to get onto your laps.
~ OK, yeah.
~ How did you enjoy it out there? ~ It was really fun.
~ It was really nerve-racking, but it was really fun.
~ Was it? ~ Yeah.
~ You ~ No, it's fantastic.
I've never You know, in the United States, ~ the stick is on the other side ~ Yeah.
.
.
so having to drive with the other That's an advantage for you, of course, because you're used to driving ~ Which is why he's mentioning it right now.
~ He's already started.
Like, "In case she beat me on the laps.
" ~ It's the whole switching the side thing.
~ In case her time was better.
OK.
Margot, you went first and Well, there was a bit of an off.
Crashed.
Yeah.
Who'd like to see Margot I said specifically, "Let's not let Will know that that happened.
" Let's have a look.
Come on.
Let's play the tape.
Margot's off.
Oh, wow, it's Chicago.
It's understeer at Chicago.
~ It's Ian! It's Ian! ~ Oh! That is Ian the cameraman! Sorry! And he's dead! ~ Margot, we have ~ I am sorry about that.
~ No, relax.
We've got a little present for you.
It's the landing light you hit.
You can take that home as a souvenir of your trip to Top Gear.
I'm so sorry about that.
~ Right, now, we've got both your laps to have a look at.
~ OK.
~ Ladies first.
~ Ladies first! ~ So, Margot, let's have a look at your lap.
This is going to end in a fist fight.
Right, here we go.
TYRES SCREECH Good clean, aggressive start.
Up to third.
First corner, first corner.
Let's have a look at this.
~ Good dab of the brakes.
~ It feel so much faster in the car.
Everybody says it, but the slower you look Oh, I don't know.
There's a lot of understeer there.
That's ballsy.
Oh, God.
Here we go.
Are going to make it without running over Ian? Oh, waving to Ian! There's a little wave there.
That was nice.
That was a "Sorry, Ian!" Big corner, don't brake, don't brake, don't brake! Don't brake! Don't brake! ~ You do look like you're concentrating in there.
~ Yeah.
Trying not to hit anyone this time round.
This is good.
I'm liking the look of this.
~ Yes.
~ Phew! Right, coming up to the fastest bit.
Foot down, foot down, foot down! ~ Confidence, that was.
That was the look of confidence.
~ Great face.
~ Through the tyres.
Yes.
That does look quick.
~ Very aggressive.
That was the fun one.
I liked that.
Second-to-last corner, this is what normally catches people out.
~ Yeah, that's the one.
~ Through there easily.
Through Gambon.
More understeer! A lot of understeer and across the line! There we are.
That was very good.
And, now ~ That was strong.
~ It is strong, Mr Will Smith.
Yeah, no, but it was on the left.
~ For me, I'm used to driving ~ Yeah, yeah.
Any more? I had back surgery like three days ago.
Who'd like to see the lap with the poor man with the back surgery himself? CROWD CHEERS Let's have a look.
Here we go.
TYRES SCREECH Whoa! That was some revs! ~ Yep.
~ Whoo! ~ Right, this is the one.
~ Did you do a few practices? ~ Yeah.
Yeah, I did a few practice laps.
That's a hard bit of braking mid-corner, there.
I tell you what, though, that car - Bubba GM's finest.
Put that power into the road.
Feeling good.
There we go.
This is the spiritual successor of the IROC Z.
I'm on the wall now.
They're putting me on the wall.
My name with all of the fastest times on this track.
That is a confident man right there.
It's actually lovely conditions for a fast time, this.
Keeping it in the lines nicely.
Yes.
It's just like watching Daniel Ricciardo all over again.
This is the one that makes my children proud.
Keep it in there.
No braking.
Flat out.
Yeah? ~ No braking.
Flat out.
~ Good man.
Yep.
That's looking very tidy.
Second-to-last corner, you have any problems? No, that is neat.
Very neat.
And through Gambon.
Still on all four wheels, unlike some people, ~ and there we are.
Across the line.
~ Whoa! ~ That was nice.
~ That was so much fun.
~ Yeah.
~ Well done, you two.
Where do you think you've come on the board? I'll be really psyched if I get on the board, to be honest.
You can't not be on the it, because, trust me, Jack Whitehall, Ed Sheeran So there's space down there for me? OK.
I want 1:52.
Well, I want, like, 1:22.
~ Oh, you're asking what I think I did? ~ Yeah, yeah.
I think I might be in the 1:50 zone.
Right in there.
~ Somewhere with the Hugh Bonneville ~ I felt like These are wet times.
Well, let's have a look, shall we? ~ Let's have a look.
I've got the times here.
~ Oh, jeez.
OK.
~ I'm going to did you first, Will.
~ OK.
~ Oh, jeez.
~ This is really exciting.
~ Will Smith ~ This is very exciting.
~ You did a 1 ~ That's a good start.
~ .
.
40 ~ Oh! ~ .
.
7 ~ Whoa! ~ .
.
2.
~ OK.
Yeah.
I'm not mad at that.
~ That is not a very bad time at all.
That puts you ~ Wow.
OK, yeah.
~ That's really great.
I'm not mad at that.
I'm not mad at that.
~ That's not bad.
~ I like that.
~ That is not bad at all.
~ Yeah.
~ And, now, we must get onto your co-star.
~ OK.
~ Oh, God.
If you beat me, this is your last day on the tour.
I will never work again after this.
It's Leo, Will Smith, and then TV.
Margot Robbie, ~ 1 ~ Oh, good! ~ .
.
40 ~ What? ~ She'd better not.
~ .
.
7 ~ Oh! She'd better not.
She'd better not.
~ .
.
1! ~ Oh! ~ Oh! I'm not making it up.
I'm sorry! ~ Holy ~ BLEEP! This was a bad idea.
This was a bad idea.
It's like the Academy Awards where you've got to clap for the other person.
~ I don't know what to say now.
~ I actually can't believe that.
Both of you have done amazing times.
There was a tenth in it.
Neither of you have got anything to be ashamed about and it has Oh, no! One of us has something to be ashamed about! ~ I was trying to end on a really high note ~ No, no.
~ .
.
coming up with some nice things ~ Yeah.
.
.
but you're right.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think you'll all agree, this has been an absolute joy.
Will Smith and Margot Robbie.
Right, now we must move on to some very sad news.
The Land Rover Defender is going out of production and our producers thought that that meant it deserved a fitting obituary and all we needed for that was a beach and a rural simpleton.
It's a little known fact that several of mankind's greatest inventions have started out as drawings in the sand on a beach.
Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce fame made his first sketch of the Merlin engine, the incredible motor that powered the Spitfire and the Lancaster, in the sand at his local beach.
Norman Woodland, no, I'd never heard of him either, was in Miami when he revolutionised shopping by drawing the first barcode in the sand.
And, in 1947, here at Red Wharf Bay in Anglesey, it was the same story for the Land Rover.
The sketch was done by a chap called Maurice Wilks who was the Technical Director for Rover cars.
At the time, he used an old Bren gun carrier to get around on his farm until, one day, he swapped it for his neighbour's old Willys Jeep and soon thought, "Hang on.
We can make something like this.
" So, he sketched out his creation in the sand and a first prototype was quickly built over the following few months.
Sadly, though, there was a bit of an issue.
You see, Maurice thought putting the steering wheel in the middle would mean they could sell it to right- and left-hand drive countries, without having to re-engineer it.
But then they realised that, amongst other things, that was going to make hand signals rather tricky.
So, it was back to the drawing board.
And, a mere ten months after that shaky start, the first Land Rover was born.
It came in this green because the only paint Land Rover could lay their hands on was surplus army leftovers they used for Spitfires.
The body was aluminium, not for clever engineering reasons, but because steel was in short supply.
If ever there was an underdog it was this.
Nobody back then could have predicted what a phenomenon the underdog would turn out to be.
The military bought it by the thousand, and it was used by everyone from the Medical Corps to the SAS, while in civilian life, it was the very definition of versatile.
You could have a Land Rover tank, a Land Rover train, a Land Rover conveyer belt, a snowplough, a fire engine, and, rather annoyingly a Land Rover hovervan.
If explorers wanted to explore, adventurers wanted to conquer terrain that was unconquerable they turned to one of these.
It was the first production vehicle to travel 18,000 miles from England to Singapore.
The first to cross the Bering Strait.
And the machine of choice for Ranulph Fiennes on his epic trans-global expedition.
In fact, at one time, the first car ever seen by 60% of the developing world was a Land Rover.
And, on top of that, it's been in production for 67 years.
Production run alone makes this thing one of the greats.
Look at the other icons - Beetle, I'd say 57 years.
fly-by-night - 42 years.
So great is my love for this machine that when, 13 years ago, we ran a Top Gear competition asking viewers to vote for the greatest car of all time, I championed the Land Rover.
And the public clearly agreed.
Because it won.
I drove a Series 1 in that film.
It was old and tatty and worn.
But I fell so completely in love with it that I actually bought it so I could restore it.
I'll never forget the day I brought it home 13 years ago - it stood in this very yard like a lost orphan.
So I took it into the workshop, stripped it down, and laid it all out on the floor so I could begin that long, loving process of restoring it to its former glory.
And here it is.
Yeah, I mean I have been REALLY busy.
And-and the thing is it's good to have a lot of spare parts cos Land Rovers break down a lot, so you never know.
Can't be too sentimental about these things.
But because it is the greatest car ever made, I must now try to make amends by giving it a fitting sendoff.
And this is the perfect starting point.
There are many great Land Rover TV adverts, but what you're watching now is the most famous of them all.
This is the one where it winches itself up a vast, steep dam.
'Next time you're late for work 'it's worth remembering that nothing 'but nothing gets in the way of a Land Rover.
' Now, the thing is that advert, as exciting as it looked, was, I'm afraid, the result of shall we say, the magic of television, because the Land Rover didn't winch itself up.
The winch on the front bumper pulled it the first few feet out of the water, but then it was actually hauled the rest of the way up by a much bigger winch hidden at the top of the dam.
So I think you can probably see what's coming next.
As our tribute to the Land Rover Defender we are going to redo that stunt properly.
Oh God.
The dam I'll be climbing is Claerwen in Wales.
It's 1,200 feet wide and, more worryingly for me, 200 feet high.
To make things worse, the Land Rover I'll be using is 64 years old.
So, in order to do what they never managed in the TV advert, we've added some bits.
When they made that advert there wasn't a winch around big enough to take on board all the cable you need to go up a big dam.
So we - well, not Jeremy and me, somebody else - has built this ginormous one.
Then there's the matter of the engine.
You see, when this thing starts to go up the dam it will go vertical, and at that point the engine at the front will cut out.
Problem, because we need the engine to power the winch.
Solution a second engine just for the winch.
Best of all this is built so it can pivot.
As the Land Rover goes vertical this stays level.
None of this gave me much comfort, however, when I was standing at the bottom.
Oh, bloody hell.
It's much steeper than the other dam in the advert.
For a brief moment I thought I was off the hook because the start point looked completely inaccessible.
Sadly, the producers had thought of that.
I hate problem solvers.
And this is just a little amuse-bouche.
Eventually, I was in place.
The winch cable was attached to the top.
And it was time to begin.
That's the engine in the back that powers the winch, remember, cos of the angle.
Um I'd love to think of something else to say or do.
I can't, so I'm going to go.
So, um Right, here I go.
Oh, it's tensioning up.
This is OK so far.
Oh! There it is.
Oh, my God! Oh! Oh-ho-ho! Oh! I know it's slow.
Any faster and I risk burning out all the winch motors and things.
Plus, there was an issue with the face of the dam itself.
The one on the advert was smooth concrete, this is rough stone.
I didn't take that into account.
What I've got to do is steer between these rocks where they stick out from the face.
METALLIC GRINDING Oh! It's jerking.
I'm having to read the surface.
CLANG! Oh! CABLE GROANS This vertical off-roading gave me another problem.
Because the Land Rover is winching itself up on its own winch, the cable has to feed evenly onto the drum.
If it doesn't do that, everything gets ruined.
I couldn't see the drum, so, up top, the producers were spotting for me.
Straighten up, please, Richard.
Ah Oh Oh Because it's so slow I've got time to think about what would happen if I can't, I daren't.
I am now terrified.
I am now absolutely petrified.
Oh Past the halfway point it started to get even worse.
I can feel the front wheels now going very light because where it goes concave, where it bellies in like that my winch cable is pulling the front of the car off the ground.
Oh! And I can't tell you how horrible that feels.
Oh-ho! Stop, stop, stop.
I'm stopping, I'm stopping.
ENGINE SHUTS OFF ~ Honestly, mate, you've got about 20 seconds, I'm ~ BLEEP ~ scared, OK? And I mean it.
OK, take your mind off it, take your mind off it.
Um this THUMP! Ah! The water behind this dam can supply Birmingham with 79 million gallons a day.
~ Who gives a ~ BLEEP ~ right now? It's all right, we're good.
It's really vertical now.
Oh, God.
CABLE GROANS I can hear the lines I can actually hear the tension in that wire.
As I get to the top, the cable becomes less strong.
Partly because, as well as the weight of the Land Rover and me, it has to be carrying the weight of itself and the winch.
CABLE GROANS Oh, God, I'm depending so much on things made by other people.
Every single part now - the brake that stops the winch feeding out, the engine - everything.
In the face of unutterable terror I was, finally, nearing the top.
We have nearly done this, I've nearly cracked it.
Just a few inches, another few turns on the winch.
What a fantastic way to pay tribute to the car What? It was at this point the producers broke the bad news.
Because of where the winch cable was attached, the Land Rover wouldn't be able to climb over onto the flat dam top.
And this meant only one thing.
I'm going to have to go back down.
I'm going to have to winch it down the dam.
I really need a piss! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you.
It was nothing.
It was nothing.
So you failed.
Well, I almost got to the top.
Yeah, but then you just came straight back down again.
I'm sorry, Hammond, if I said, "I'm going to drive to Bristol," and then got NEARLY to Bristol and came home again, that's NOT going to Bristol.
Look, the main thing is I gave the Land Rover Defender ~ a fitting sendoff.
~ Yeah, but they're working on a new Defender now and it looks EXACTLY the same as the old one.
So you said you'd drive to the top of a dam, which you didn't, to pay tribute to a car that you said was about to die, but it's not.
Yeah.
Well, that means you're a liar and you've completely wasted our time.
Yeah.
And on that bombshell, I'm afraid it's time to end.
Next week normal service is resumed.
James and I have a lot of crashes on purpose.
Hopefully we shall see you then.
Thank you for watching, good night!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you, everybody, thank you! Thank you so much.
Thank you, and welcome.
Welcome to what is, for the first time in many years, an actual car show.
We've packed it with many facts and a lot of informations.
And we're starting the ball rolling with this, the Mercedes SLS.
This was one of my favourite cars and I was very sad when they stopped making it.
But, happily, there is now a replacement, which I haven't been driving on the track because James has.
This is what they've come up with.
It's called the AMG GT.
And it costs between £97,000 and £120,000.
Now, I have to be entirely honest with you - when I woke up this morning and got out of bed to come and drive this car, it was with a certain amount of disquiet.
I've always thought that AMG Mercedes are a bit - as my mother would say - unnecessary.
I don't like the Stormtrooper body kit look.
I don't really like those pseudo-special forces names like "SLS" and "Black".
Jeremy likes them a lot.
With this car, however, you sense that something is different, that everything's a bit more grown-up.
See, their last coupe, the SLS, had a massive, and again, not entirely necessary, 6.
2-litre V8.
This car also has a V8, but it's a brand-new one and it's a much more modest four litres.
Because of that, you might expect it to take a little longer to get from A to B.
However ENGINE ROARS The 0-60 time in that 6.
2-litre SLS was 3.
8 seconds.
On this, the four-litre car, it is exactly the same.
The top speeds are almost exactly the same as well, both up in the high 190s.
Strewth! And AMG has achieved this by using brains to make the brawn.
This car has two turbochargers.
Normally, turbochargers would be bolted onto the outside of the engines, but on this car, they live inside the V of the engine.
What this means is the engine is more compact, the turbos are more efficient.
So this car costs £50,000 less than the old SLS, it uses a lot less fuel and it still goes just as quickly.
That is what they call on The Apprentice a "win-win".
And then there's the styling, which also has a new level of sophistication, with an interior that's more James Bond than Fast And Furious.
On the outside, it's much the same story.
These doors are perfectly conventional in and out sort of doors.
They are NOT like those idiotic gull-wing things you get on the SLS, which makes it look as if it's sniffing its own armpits.
This rear spoiler is actually an option, but even that, by AMG's standards, is quite discreet.
In fact, the whole thing is quite pretty.
Quite classic, even.
And now we must move on to cornering, an activity where AMG normally scores maximum points for mentalness.
This is, when all's said and done, a 503 horsepower rear-wheel drive muscle car, and that sounds like a recipe for extreme trickiness.
In fact, you can corner quickly in this thing, and without soiling your trousers.
TYRES SCREECH Which, once again, is thanks to intelligent engineering.
In a normal car, the engine and the gearbox, they're just dead weight hanging in there and they move around a bit and sort of spoil the balance as you go round corners.
In this car, the mountings for all that stuff are active.
So, as you go through a bend, they stiffen up to keep all that weight in check.
It's a bit like the way a cat can walk along the top of a fence using its tail to keep itself in balance.
However, if, like Jeremy, you want to devour your back tyres in one sitting, you still can.
TYRES SCREECH Yes, thank you! And then, there's the noise.
Are you ready? Here we go.
ENGINE GROWLS HE BARKS HE BARKS I hate it when my prejudices are demolished, but this card is giving me the fizz.
What I like most of all is that the GT is cleverly designed to be Jekyll and Hyde.
I'm just going to quieten it down.
Turn off the manual change, the noisy exhaust.
We'll put it back into comfort mode, comfort suspension There you go.
When you turn all that off, it turns into this incredibly civilised, long-legged cruiser.
I like what they've done.
They've got rid of the Andy McNab names and all that nonsense and given us an AMG for grown-ups.
I'm glad I got out of bed this morning.
ENGINE ROARS CHEERING It's what I've been saying for a long time.
So there you go, May.
Ha-ha-ha! I've been saying for ages, AMG Mercs are brilliant.
Yes, there are couple of massive problems with this one, though.
~ What? ~ Well, firstly, it reminds me of you.
~ LAUGHTER ~ The second one is that, to be honest, for not much more than half the price of this, you could have a Nissan GT-R, which, as we have established, is the finest car in the world.
It's certainly up there, I will grant you that.
But I'll tell you what we'll do, we'll sort it out on the track, OK? We'll see how fast this one can get round.
That of course means handing it over to our tame racing driver.
Some say that last week, he won a BAFTA for Best Original Smell.
LAUGHTER And that when he dies, he thinks he'll go to Devon.
LAUGHTER All we know is, he's called The Stig! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE And he's not in the car.
Oh, yes, Stig not happy about Ricciardo's lap He's punched him! He's punched him! That's bad.
He's really not happy about that fast lap.
He's in the car now, and he's off.
A wheel-spinning start.
Obviously in a furious temper.
through the light but strong carbon fibre prop shaft.
Oh, he's vandalised the first corner.
He is really very annoyed.
But he is driving beautifully.
You know I can't smile without you Another slice of the calming Carpenters there.
Through Chicago, looking very fast and very controlled.
Now Hammerhead.
James says this car can suffer from snap understeer, so let's see what happens.
No, not a thing.
It's worth remembering, of course, that James suffers from being a moron.
LAUGHTER .
.
I feel sad when OK, into the Follow Through, banging up the double clutch gearbox, letting the perfect balance of the transaxle layout do its stuff.
Just a stab of brakes past the tyres.
Stig pretending the pedal is an Australian's face.
Two corners to go Oh, he's hot through there but very tidy.
Only Gambon left.
Laser-guided through there, and across the line! CHEERING I have the time here.
Ready?! It did a 1.
17.
5.
And that is Well, look.
That's quicker than the old SLS Black and, ahem, quicker than the Nissan GT-R.
Which shows, James, that you don't know what you're talking about.
Hmm, interesting.
Didn't actually feel like it would be that fast when I was driving it, to be honest.
No, that's because yeah, YOU were driving it.
LAUGHTER Right, and now we must do the news.
And we start with big news.
This is the biggest news we've had in a long time, I would say.
Because Ford, for the very first time, is making the Mustang in right-hand drive and will be bringing it to the UK officially.
You can buy them over here.
There it is.
Two versions - you can have a four-cylinder EcoBoost for £28,000, or for £33,000, a five-litre V8.
Mm, the one I want, though, is the Shelby, the 350 ~ GT, yeah, yeah, yeah.
~ .
.
or something like that.
It's 520 horsepower V8.
~ That's the one.
There it is, look.
~ It looks brilliant.
But you can't, they're not bringing that one here.
~ They're not selling that one to us.
~ Why? ~ It's going to Canada in a year.
Yeah, I know, but so is the internet, but that But that's not coming here, no, we can't ~ Why won't they sell it to us? ~ I don't know.
But you must be very looking forward to a right-hand drive Mustang, Richard Hammond.
Yeah, you'd think No, not really.
Because I don't want a right-hand drive Mustang.
Once it becomes right-hand drive, it's like it's trying too hard to be British and sophisticated and something it's not.
I know what you mean.
It's like when Americans come over here and start using words like "bloody".
~ Yes! ~ Isn't it? ~ It's exactly that.
~ It is.
And they say, "I'm going to the bloody pub!" ~ It doesn't sound right.
It's the same.
~ Exactly, it is.
Or they say "mate".
They try and say "mate", but it just doesn't work.
Yes, cos they think we're Crocodile Dundee, ~ cos it's all the same, cos they haven't got atlases.
~ Yeah.
So that, realistically, should be called, now it's coming here, the "Ford Bloody Quid Mate".
LAUGHTER Should be its name! Ooh, now Can I just do a survey? How many people here enjoyed the ambulance film we did last week? AUDIENCE: Yes! OK, you see, the problem we have is that we've had an electronic communication from a man called Mr E36-Man-4000, who says, "Dear so-called Top Gear, I HATED your thing on ambulances.
"Why don't you stick to cars?" Shall we show Mr What's he called, Mr Hashtag? Shall we show him what this show would be like if we just talked about cars? ~ Yeah, OK.
~ Yeah, all right.
I tell you what I drove this week ~ Volkswagen Passat diesel.
~ Did you? ~ Mm.
Surprisingly comfortable.
I also drove an Audi TT.
~ Which is much nicer than you'd think.
~ OK.
Actually, I've been driving the new Porsche 911 Turbo, which is very fast but surprisingly quiet.
Oh, is it? Mm-hm.
LAUGHTER Um, Aston Martin have built a new one-off for a Bond film.
~ It's called the DB10.
~ Yeah, mm.
~ AUDIENCE: Ooh! ~ I don't think much of that, actually.
~ I don't like the way it looks.
~ No, I don't.
~ No, I do.
~ OK.
~ Erm, Vauxhall ~ LAUGHTER .
.
has a new car, the Corsa.
I've got nothing on that.
Shall we give up on car news? I'm going to take charge again, because I want to talk about something else, right? I want to talk about some experts who said last week they wanted to rip up all of Britain's railway lines and replace them with motorways that would then only be used by coaches.
~ And I think that would be a shame.
~ Why would that be a shame? Because I like having coaches on motorways.
~ Why? ~ Because you can drive alongside them and use their Wi-Fi.
Can you?! LAUGHTER You can, honestly! Have you not done that? It's fabulous.
My kids always say, "Daddy, Daddy, slow down to 70.
" ~ I mean, sorry, "Speed up to 70.
" ~ Yeah.
"Catch the coach, quickly, "so we can snapchat this picture of a poo I've done.
" They do! ~ So it's like a free roaming Wi-Fi? ~ Exactly! Do it on the way home.
It's incredibly cheap.
Now, a few years ago, we improved police cars, and last week, ~ we improved ambulances.
~ Yes, we did.
We are now the emergency service for the emergency services.
Yeah, we are.
That's what we are.
Quite a lot of people have written to us and said, "Right, "when are you going to improve fire engines?" Mm! No, but there's a No, actually We've looked into this and there's a problem, because if you have to build a vehicle big enough for all the water you need and pumps and ladders and buckets and six burly men, and women, in Wellingtons, what you end up with is a fire engine.
~ Yeah.
~ But, specifically, a British fire engine.
That's important.
Yeah, not one of those stupid American ones where all ~ the firemen stand on the outside.
~ They do! So you get there and there's nobody on board to put the fire out! Do you know what I like about the British fire engine? It says "Dennis" on the front.
Dennis is a reassuring name.
A Dennis would remember to return your lawn mower.
It is interesting, actually, because American fire engines have really stupid names.
I've got a picture of an American fire engine here.
~ Guess what that's called? ~ Fire Engine.
No, it's called The Igniter.
~ LAUGHTER ~ It is! ~ How does? "I've already got a fire!" ~ Exactly! It should be called The Extinguisher.
~ They've probably got an ambulance called The Haemorrhage.
~ Yes.
~ LAUGHTER ~ Right, earlier on, James had a go at a proper road test in a one-off car show ~ and now it's my turn.
~ Try not to muck it up.
No, no, no, relax, this is going to be a blizzard of facts because I'm going to talk about the new BMW M3.
It has a smaller engine than the old model, three litres rather than four.
It has two fewer cylinders, but it is turbo-charged, so you get a little bit more horsepower and 111 more torques.
That means it's four seconds a lap faster round our track than the old car.
And four seconds is a huge gulf because, remember, that was already five seconds a lap faster round the Ascari track in Spain than the equivalent Mercedes and Audi, so this is properly quick AND it's more economical, but, and this is the big one, is it nicer to drive? Well, here it is, slithering about on our track.
TYRES SCREECH Look at that.
I mean, that's just the M3 signature dish.
But, straightaway, I must tell you there is a bit of a niggle.
~ TYRES SCREECH ~ If you stick the tail out in a corner, which you can, easily, because it's an M3, you'll find it very hard to hold the drift because the power steering is now electric rather than hydraulic.
Going round a corner like this is like wrestling with the tail of an excitable crocodile.
It's not just hard to hold the slide, it's also hard to straighten up again afterwards.
See what I mean? Now, I admit, in the real world, this isn't going to be much of a problem ever, if I'm honest.
And anyway, you can solve it by taking the steering out of Sport Plus mode and putting it in Comfort mode.
Then everything is fine.
Oh, yeah! In fact, everything is more than fine, everything is absolutely sublime! I'm not going to beat about the bush, this car is utterly brilliant.
It's well made, it's got seating for four, it's got a decent-sized boot, it's comfortable, it's quiet, it's got lots of standard equipment.
In many ways, this car is like the perfect dog - it's loyal, it's cute, it doesn't chase sheep, it doesn't go wrong all the time and yet, if a burglar comes, it has the power to rip his throat out.
"Look at me! I'm an attack dog now! "I'm fierce and bitey!" And that really is that.
It is a fabulous, wonderful car and if you have £56,000 lying around, you should buy one immediately.
Or should you? Because today, we live in strange times.
Environmental times.
And BMW has another new car which reflects that.
It's one of the most talked-about cars in years and this is it.
It's called the i8 and it's a hybrid, which means it's powered by an electric motor and a tiny three cylinder, 1.
5 litre, turbo-charged petrol engine.
That doesn't sound like much of a recipe.
It sounds like a sort of glorified Toyota Prius, but let me give you the headline figures.
This car does 155mph and 134 miles to the gallon.
And because it's so economical, you get a £5,000 grant from the government if you buy one, it's exempt from the London Congestion Charge and the road-tax bill, as you can see here, is nil.
It really does sound, then, like this car answers everyone's prayers, but does it? Are pure-bred petrolheads like me really going to say, "Mm, yes, what I really want next is a three-cylinder hybrid?" Well, that is what I'm going to try and find out.
I'm going to set the satellite navigation for Whitby in North Yorkshire and, obviously, in a car as futuristic as this, you don't push buttons to do that, you trace the letters you want on this pad here, so, wuh .
.
huh .
.
ih tuh Ah-ha! OK.
'Whitby, North Yorkshire, guidance started.
' Now, the reason I've chosen Whitby is, A, you get the best fish and chips and the world there and, B, the M3 we saw earlier is waiting for me there, which means, when I arrive, I will face a simple choice.
Will I want to drive home in that or this? With the sat nav looking for the most economical route to Whitby, I put my sensible head on and settled down for a 200 mile fact-finding mission.
You have a choice of three driving modes.
Number one, electric drive.
That's the electric motor only.
It gives you a range of 20 miles, and probably enough for you to do your morning commute.
Then, if you move the gear lever over here, you engage sport mode and that means the electric motor and the petrol engine are working together to give 352 horsepower and it makes the car sort of firm and bitey and Nurburgringy.
But, since we are on the A1, I shall go for comfort mode.
Lovely.
'And it really was lovely.
' I know there is an electric motor in the front, driving the front wheels through a two-speed automatic gearbox.
I know there's a petrol engine at the back, driving the rear wheels through a six-speed automatic gearbox.
I also know there is another small electric motor at the back, filling in the gaps and doing all sorts of clever things.
And yet, sitting here, this car feels no weirder to drive than that whatever it is, that hatchback thing there.
I've got a steering wheel, gear lever, accelerator, brake and Ken Bruce on the radio.
How normal is that?! BBC Radio 2! But there is a problem.
If you're driving in comfort mode, you're not really charging up the batteries and, eventually, they are going to go flat.
One solution is to turn off the motorway and charge them up at the mains, but, as you're about to see, this is not to be recommended.
"Connect your vehicle and validate.
" Look, I can operate a Hoover! Oh, this is stupid! Well, it must It must be charging.
It's plugged in, so I shall go and get a cup of coffee.
While we wait for the batteries to charge, let me show you this incredible app that you can get with your i8, OK? If I push that, I can set the air conditioning so the car is cool when I get back into it.
How amazing is that?! If I can also flash the headlights, so I could find it if I've lost it in a car park.
I can lock it.
I can unlock it.
I don't know why you'd want to do that remotely, but you can.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to find a feature on here that enables the i8 to find another i8 for a good time.
'After an hour, I went back to the car 'and found that the charging point hadn't worked.
' If you had a pure electric car, you would be completely stuffed, but this is not a pure electric car.
So I'm not.
I can either drive along without the batteries or I can put the gear lever over here to engage sport mode and then they are being charged up as I drive along.
What's more, in sport mode, the i8 is properly fast.
I scoffed when BMW said they were going to make a hybrid that was as fast as a 911 or a Chevrolet Corvette, but .
.
it really is! 'It's so fast that soon I was in the North.
' This is Doncaster.
This is where I grew up.
It was a mining town back then, but now look.
It's a wind farm.
Bit less romantic, the windmills, and they employ fewer people, but Time moves on, I guess.
'So far, then, the i8 had done well.
'But to find out if it could truly win the heart of the petrol head, 'I turned off the A1 and plunged into 'the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors.
' DRAMATIC, SWEEPING MUSIC So, let's find out.
Oh, God above, this is good! This is a revelation! It's the lightness that staggers you most of all.
It's almost as though I'm steering using nothing but thought.
And because the heavy battery pack is located in the middle of the car, here, low down, it has the same centre of gravity as as a worm! Couple that to the four-wheel-drive system and, honestly, you can go round any corner at any speed that takes your fancy.
The harder I go, the faster I drive, the sharper I brake, the more electricity I'm making for the batteries.
If you get busted for speeding in this car, you get a thank-you letter from Greenpeace.
And rightly so! 'But before we get carried away with this environmental stuff, 'there's one important point we all need to remember.
' I've always had a fundamental problem with hybrids.
And it's this.
We all know the world has limited resources and we must do all we can to eke them out.
And you're not going to do that if you drive around in a car that has, effectively, two engines.
You don't solve the problem of conspicuous consumption by using conspicuous consumption.
The thing is, though, while you have to rape the world to make a car like that, the benefits of owning one for you and I, in the here and now, are immense, because that car That car is staggering.
It's breathtaking.
MUSIC: The Hovis Theme, New World Symphony by Dvorak It's nearly as breathtaking as that view.
'With the advert for Yorkshire over, I got back on the road.
' It is incredible to think that I'm now cruising into Whitby in silent electric mode, using electricity that I made by driving quickly on the moors.
The message really is very clear from this car.
If you want to save the planet, drive fast.
'After a short eco drive through the pretty fishing port of Whitby '.
.
I arrived in the harbour, where I faced a very difficult choice.
' Cod or haddock? I think cod.
'Then I faced an even more difficult choice.
'Which of these cars would I drive back to London?' This is the hardest decision I've ever had to make between cars, ever.
It's like the M3 is the best of where we've come from and the i8 is where going.
There must have been a moment in history when everybody had typewriters and typewriters had been around hundreds of years and they were brilliant, and then somebody came along with a laptop.
That is what's going on there.
No, I've made my mind up.
Bet you weren't expecting that! APPLAUSE APPLAUSE DROWNS SPEECH ~ What? ~ Hold on, hold on, hold on.
Let me make sure I got this straight.
~ You, let's be honest, are our resident dinosaur.
~ I am.
And you prefer the i8 to the M3? ~ No.
~ But in the film ~ Yes, I know.
I was wrong.
The thing is, I've had some time to do some thinking since then and there are one or two bits and bobs on the i8 that would drive you mad.
I mean, rear visibility is atrocious, the boot is microscopic, this window doesn't go all the way down, so you can't drive along with your arm hanging out and I discovered last week that an i8 has just been bought by Wayne Rooney.
Oh, no.
LAUGHTER ~ And it gets worse.
~ How can it get worse than that? Because, in a laboratory in Munich, it can do 134 miles to the gallon, but have a guess how many miles to the gallon I averaged.
~ 80? ~ No.
~ 79? ~ No! ~ 78? ~ No, James! I averaged 31 miles to the gallon.
And other i8 owners are reporting the same sort of thing and it only has a tiny little fuel tank, seven gallons, which means you're going to be stopping for fuel all the time.
So, when you said, "It's a laptop," ~ it's one of those really early-days laptops? ~ It is.
They are on the right road, make no mistake about that, but they are not there just yet.
So, anyway, let's move on, let's put a Star In Our Reasonably Priced Car.
Now, my guest tonight was Jordan Belfort's wife in The Wolf Of Wall Street, one of my favourite films of the modern age.
She is now in a new film and she's brought along her co-star, so please welcome Margot Robbie and a man called Will Smith! CHEERING Oh, heavens above! Look what we've got for you! Yeah, we got you as well.
~ Good to see you.
~ Good to see you both.
Margot, I'll go round here.
And relax.
~ Have a seat! Have a seat! ~ This is fantastic! ~ Wow! ~ Is it really fantastic? ~ This is great.
Cos I was going to begin by apologising for the trailers we have.
~ The trailers! Oh! Those trailers, yeah.
~ They're really nice.
~ You know ~ Will set his bar very high with trailers, though, so ~ Really? ~ Yes, his trailer is pimped.
I'm very serious about trailers.
The trailer, you know, it has to be, like, you know, you got to hook it up, have a stereo system, you know, it has to Yours had mirrors on the roof if I recall.
LAUGHTER, HE MOUTHS I'm not insinuating anything, I'm just saying! That's going to get in trouble! That's going to get us in trouble, there we go! Already in trouble where my mind's gone! ~ No, cos really, not that long ago, you were in Neighbours.
~ Yeah.
What interests me about Neighbours, which is an Aussie TV ~ I know what neighbours is! ~ Don't pretend you know.
Two days ago, they asked him what show I did in Australia, a very popular show, and you said it started with C.
~ I couldn't remember the name.
~ There's no C in it.
I just can't see Will Smith finishing his day going, "You know what, I think I'll watch Neighbours.
" "Ooh, 6.
30, my show's on!" ~ Russell Crowe started in that, didn't he? ~ Mm.
What's his name, Guy Pearce was another one.
Kylie is another one.
~ Yes, yes.
~ I was wondering, do you know Coronation Street? ~ Cos that's produced ~ I know all those shows, man! ~ You don't! And you won't because ~ I got the DVDs and everything! It's just unbelievable, I'm afraid.
I know all about this, the Coronation Street and Neighbours and all those.
EastEnders, yeah.
~ Now, em, you are over here, obviously, to promote a film.
~ Yes.
It's called Focus, but it isn't about the small Ford hatchback, which will have disappointed some people in here.
It's Well, it's a love story between you two, which is rather sweet.
~ Yeah.
~ It's interesting, it's My character plays a conman, a master thief, and part of being a master thief is he's a liar and he meets Margot's character, Jess, and falls madly in love and realises quickly that lying and loving don't go together too well.
They go together OFTEN, but they don't go together WELL.
~ I believe we have a clip, which we can show now.
~ OK.
~ This is a man's world ~ Are you working an angle? ~ I wouldn't trust him, if I were you.
~ But I should trust you? ~ You've got a problem.
~ I am going to kill you.
~ Kill me later.
~ You lost everyone's money, my money?! ~ Hey! ~ Wow! ~ Wow! ~ This is your mess.
~ I think you're losing it.
~ Whoa! Whoa! ~ Then why did you come up here? ~ Professional curiosity.
And I like boobs.
You know, I figured it was a win-win.
'At the end of the day, this is a game of focus.
' Did you notice when I had my shirt off? You noticed, didn't you? Did you see that shot? I just want to know if you saw the shot! That's what everyone took away from the trailer.
~ Margot had her trousers off.
~ Oh, yes! You saw that! ~ Slightly more distracting.
~ I get that.
I get that.
And I've seen you with no shirt on a million times, but I've never Well, I have seen Margot with no clothes on.
I've never seen you ~ This just got awkward.
~ It did.
Now, one of the things that make it even more awkward ~ is you filmed quite a lot of the movie in Argentina.
~ Yes.
Yeah.
LAUGHTER ~ How did that go for you? ~ For me? It was good.
It was good, man.
~ Argentina's fantastic.
~ Is it? LAUGHTER ~ What's wrong with Argentina? ~ What's wrong with Argentina? What happened? ~ Every ~ BLEEP ~ thing! LAUGHTER The thing is Well, I enjoyed it and best of luck with it.
~ Well, thank you, man.
~ When's it open? ~ When does it open? ~ 27th.
~ 27th.
~ February 27th.
~ Is it the 27th here? Yes! OK! Yes.
Now, we've got to get onto cars because you grew up on a farm in Australia, so you, presumably, have been driving since you were naught because it's such a vast area.
Yeah, it's huge, but, yeah, in our family, the rule was you could drive as soon as you could like, you know, physically reach the pedals and you could have the car on your own when you reached double digits, ~ so when you were ten, you were allowed to ~ Wow.
And I remember being nine years old and arguing with the parents, being like, "Guys, this is absurd.
"I'm not like" And they're like, "No, you're nine.
"You have to wait another year.
" And I was like, "This is "I can't believe this.
This is ridiculous.
" ~ Have you been out to the outback? ~ The out No, no, no.
I feel like you'd fit right in.
You'd just love it.
So it's a racial thing? You went racial.
LAUGHTER And, so, what was your first car? It was a candy apple-red IROC Z, a Camaro.
~ Apparently you don't have those here.
~ No, we don't.
No.
We have What's the word? Taste.
LAUGHTER I was thinking, "Maybe this would indicate you don't know about cars," and then I started to look into some of the lyrics.
~ Are you familiar with the lyrics of the early songs? ~ Oh, jeez.
I wasn't born.
~ In a song called Gettin' Jiggy Wit It ~ Yes.
I remember that.
Yeah, I know that one.
LAUGHTER I don't recognise that one.
It's got 850is.
~ Who's the kid in the drop? ~ Who else? ~ CROWD: Will Smith.
~ Will Smith.
~ Now, drop, I presume, means drop-top.
~ Drop-top, yes.
They never did a drop-top 850.
LAUGHTER It's a small problem.
No, no, hold on.
Now, see, he thinks he knows everything.
He thinks he knows everything.
~ In the United States, we do a thing where we customise our cars.
~ Yeah.
~ Can I just give you another one? ~ This is brilliant.
Just Cruisin'.
The Maestro.
Do you know the next bit? ~ Yes, yes, yes.
~ Nice flow.
~ Nice flow.
Hot like nitro.
~ Cool as ice, though.
~ Cool as ice, though.
~ That's a dichotomy.
~ Do you know what a Maestro is? ~ You've got one? There you go.
Oh, my God.
It is so awkward for me to hear you say my lyrics like that.
~ I'll bet.
~ No, it's making my eyes water.
We've done enough of this now.
We want to get onto your laps.
~ OK, yeah.
~ How did you enjoy it out there? ~ It was really fun.
~ It was really nerve-racking, but it was really fun.
~ Was it? ~ Yeah.
~ You ~ No, it's fantastic.
I've never You know, in the United States, ~ the stick is on the other side ~ Yeah.
.
.
so having to drive with the other That's an advantage for you, of course, because you're used to driving ~ Which is why he's mentioning it right now.
~ He's already started.
Like, "In case she beat me on the laps.
" ~ It's the whole switching the side thing.
~ In case her time was better.
OK.
Margot, you went first and Well, there was a bit of an off.
Crashed.
Yeah.
Who'd like to see Margot I said specifically, "Let's not let Will know that that happened.
" Let's have a look.
Come on.
Let's play the tape.
Margot's off.
Oh, wow, it's Chicago.
It's understeer at Chicago.
~ It's Ian! It's Ian! ~ Oh! That is Ian the cameraman! Sorry! And he's dead! ~ Margot, we have ~ I am sorry about that.
~ No, relax.
We've got a little present for you.
It's the landing light you hit.
You can take that home as a souvenir of your trip to Top Gear.
I'm so sorry about that.
~ Right, now, we've got both your laps to have a look at.
~ OK.
~ Ladies first.
~ Ladies first! ~ So, Margot, let's have a look at your lap.
This is going to end in a fist fight.
Right, here we go.
TYRES SCREECH Good clean, aggressive start.
Up to third.
First corner, first corner.
Let's have a look at this.
~ Good dab of the brakes.
~ It feel so much faster in the car.
Everybody says it, but the slower you look Oh, I don't know.
There's a lot of understeer there.
That's ballsy.
Oh, God.
Here we go.
Are going to make it without running over Ian? Oh, waving to Ian! There's a little wave there.
That was nice.
That was a "Sorry, Ian!" Big corner, don't brake, don't brake, don't brake! Don't brake! Don't brake! ~ You do look like you're concentrating in there.
~ Yeah.
Trying not to hit anyone this time round.
This is good.
I'm liking the look of this.
~ Yes.
~ Phew! Right, coming up to the fastest bit.
Foot down, foot down, foot down! ~ Confidence, that was.
That was the look of confidence.
~ Great face.
~ Through the tyres.
Yes.
That does look quick.
~ Very aggressive.
That was the fun one.
I liked that.
Second-to-last corner, this is what normally catches people out.
~ Yeah, that's the one.
~ Through there easily.
Through Gambon.
More understeer! A lot of understeer and across the line! There we are.
That was very good.
And, now ~ That was strong.
~ It is strong, Mr Will Smith.
Yeah, no, but it was on the left.
~ For me, I'm used to driving ~ Yeah, yeah.
Any more? I had back surgery like three days ago.
Who'd like to see the lap with the poor man with the back surgery himself? CROWD CHEERS Let's have a look.
Here we go.
TYRES SCREECH Whoa! That was some revs! ~ Yep.
~ Whoo! ~ Right, this is the one.
~ Did you do a few practices? ~ Yeah.
Yeah, I did a few practice laps.
That's a hard bit of braking mid-corner, there.
I tell you what, though, that car - Bubba GM's finest.
Put that power into the road.
Feeling good.
There we go.
This is the spiritual successor of the IROC Z.
I'm on the wall now.
They're putting me on the wall.
My name with all of the fastest times on this track.
That is a confident man right there.
It's actually lovely conditions for a fast time, this.
Keeping it in the lines nicely.
Yes.
It's just like watching Daniel Ricciardo all over again.
This is the one that makes my children proud.
Keep it in there.
No braking.
Flat out.
Yeah? ~ No braking.
Flat out.
~ Good man.
Yep.
That's looking very tidy.
Second-to-last corner, you have any problems? No, that is neat.
Very neat.
And through Gambon.
Still on all four wheels, unlike some people, ~ and there we are.
Across the line.
~ Whoa! ~ That was nice.
~ That was so much fun.
~ Yeah.
~ Well done, you two.
Where do you think you've come on the board? I'll be really psyched if I get on the board, to be honest.
You can't not be on the it, because, trust me, Jack Whitehall, Ed Sheeran So there's space down there for me? OK.
I want 1:52.
Well, I want, like, 1:22.
~ Oh, you're asking what I think I did? ~ Yeah, yeah.
I think I might be in the 1:50 zone.
Right in there.
~ Somewhere with the Hugh Bonneville ~ I felt like These are wet times.
Well, let's have a look, shall we? ~ Let's have a look.
I've got the times here.
~ Oh, jeez.
OK.
~ I'm going to did you first, Will.
~ OK.
~ Oh, jeez.
~ This is really exciting.
~ Will Smith ~ This is very exciting.
~ You did a 1 ~ That's a good start.
~ .
.
40 ~ Oh! ~ .
.
7 ~ Whoa! ~ .
.
2.
~ OK.
Yeah.
I'm not mad at that.
~ That is not a very bad time at all.
That puts you ~ Wow.
OK, yeah.
~ That's really great.
I'm not mad at that.
I'm not mad at that.
~ That's not bad.
~ I like that.
~ That is not bad at all.
~ Yeah.
~ And, now, we must get onto your co-star.
~ OK.
~ Oh, God.
If you beat me, this is your last day on the tour.
I will never work again after this.
It's Leo, Will Smith, and then TV.
Margot Robbie, ~ 1 ~ Oh, good! ~ .
.
40 ~ What? ~ She'd better not.
~ .
.
7 ~ Oh! She'd better not.
She'd better not.
~ .
.
1! ~ Oh! ~ Oh! I'm not making it up.
I'm sorry! ~ Holy ~ BLEEP! This was a bad idea.
This was a bad idea.
It's like the Academy Awards where you've got to clap for the other person.
~ I don't know what to say now.
~ I actually can't believe that.
Both of you have done amazing times.
There was a tenth in it.
Neither of you have got anything to be ashamed about and it has Oh, no! One of us has something to be ashamed about! ~ I was trying to end on a really high note ~ No, no.
~ .
.
coming up with some nice things ~ Yeah.
.
.
but you're right.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think you'll all agree, this has been an absolute joy.
Will Smith and Margot Robbie.
Right, now we must move on to some very sad news.
The Land Rover Defender is going out of production and our producers thought that that meant it deserved a fitting obituary and all we needed for that was a beach and a rural simpleton.
It's a little known fact that several of mankind's greatest inventions have started out as drawings in the sand on a beach.
Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce fame made his first sketch of the Merlin engine, the incredible motor that powered the Spitfire and the Lancaster, in the sand at his local beach.
Norman Woodland, no, I'd never heard of him either, was in Miami when he revolutionised shopping by drawing the first barcode in the sand.
And, in 1947, here at Red Wharf Bay in Anglesey, it was the same story for the Land Rover.
The sketch was done by a chap called Maurice Wilks who was the Technical Director for Rover cars.
At the time, he used an old Bren gun carrier to get around on his farm until, one day, he swapped it for his neighbour's old Willys Jeep and soon thought, "Hang on.
We can make something like this.
" So, he sketched out his creation in the sand and a first prototype was quickly built over the following few months.
Sadly, though, there was a bit of an issue.
You see, Maurice thought putting the steering wheel in the middle would mean they could sell it to right- and left-hand drive countries, without having to re-engineer it.
But then they realised that, amongst other things, that was going to make hand signals rather tricky.
So, it was back to the drawing board.
And, a mere ten months after that shaky start, the first Land Rover was born.
It came in this green because the only paint Land Rover could lay their hands on was surplus army leftovers they used for Spitfires.
The body was aluminium, not for clever engineering reasons, but because steel was in short supply.
If ever there was an underdog it was this.
Nobody back then could have predicted what a phenomenon the underdog would turn out to be.
The military bought it by the thousand, and it was used by everyone from the Medical Corps to the SAS, while in civilian life, it was the very definition of versatile.
You could have a Land Rover tank, a Land Rover train, a Land Rover conveyer belt, a snowplough, a fire engine, and, rather annoyingly a Land Rover hovervan.
If explorers wanted to explore, adventurers wanted to conquer terrain that was unconquerable they turned to one of these.
It was the first production vehicle to travel 18,000 miles from England to Singapore.
The first to cross the Bering Strait.
And the machine of choice for Ranulph Fiennes on his epic trans-global expedition.
In fact, at one time, the first car ever seen by 60% of the developing world was a Land Rover.
And, on top of that, it's been in production for 67 years.
Production run alone makes this thing one of the greats.
Look at the other icons - Beetle, I'd say 57 years.
fly-by-night - 42 years.
So great is my love for this machine that when, 13 years ago, we ran a Top Gear competition asking viewers to vote for the greatest car of all time, I championed the Land Rover.
And the public clearly agreed.
Because it won.
I drove a Series 1 in that film.
It was old and tatty and worn.
But I fell so completely in love with it that I actually bought it so I could restore it.
I'll never forget the day I brought it home 13 years ago - it stood in this very yard like a lost orphan.
So I took it into the workshop, stripped it down, and laid it all out on the floor so I could begin that long, loving process of restoring it to its former glory.
And here it is.
Yeah, I mean I have been REALLY busy.
And-and the thing is it's good to have a lot of spare parts cos Land Rovers break down a lot, so you never know.
Can't be too sentimental about these things.
But because it is the greatest car ever made, I must now try to make amends by giving it a fitting sendoff.
And this is the perfect starting point.
There are many great Land Rover TV adverts, but what you're watching now is the most famous of them all.
This is the one where it winches itself up a vast, steep dam.
'Next time you're late for work 'it's worth remembering that nothing 'but nothing gets in the way of a Land Rover.
' Now, the thing is that advert, as exciting as it looked, was, I'm afraid, the result of shall we say, the magic of television, because the Land Rover didn't winch itself up.
The winch on the front bumper pulled it the first few feet out of the water, but then it was actually hauled the rest of the way up by a much bigger winch hidden at the top of the dam.
So I think you can probably see what's coming next.
As our tribute to the Land Rover Defender we are going to redo that stunt properly.
Oh God.
The dam I'll be climbing is Claerwen in Wales.
It's 1,200 feet wide and, more worryingly for me, 200 feet high.
To make things worse, the Land Rover I'll be using is 64 years old.
So, in order to do what they never managed in the TV advert, we've added some bits.
When they made that advert there wasn't a winch around big enough to take on board all the cable you need to go up a big dam.
So we - well, not Jeremy and me, somebody else - has built this ginormous one.
Then there's the matter of the engine.
You see, when this thing starts to go up the dam it will go vertical, and at that point the engine at the front will cut out.
Problem, because we need the engine to power the winch.
Solution a second engine just for the winch.
Best of all this is built so it can pivot.
As the Land Rover goes vertical this stays level.
None of this gave me much comfort, however, when I was standing at the bottom.
Oh, bloody hell.
It's much steeper than the other dam in the advert.
For a brief moment I thought I was off the hook because the start point looked completely inaccessible.
Sadly, the producers had thought of that.
I hate problem solvers.
And this is just a little amuse-bouche.
Eventually, I was in place.
The winch cable was attached to the top.
And it was time to begin.
That's the engine in the back that powers the winch, remember, cos of the angle.
Um I'd love to think of something else to say or do.
I can't, so I'm going to go.
So, um Right, here I go.
Oh, it's tensioning up.
This is OK so far.
Oh! There it is.
Oh, my God! Oh! Oh-ho-ho! Oh! I know it's slow.
Any faster and I risk burning out all the winch motors and things.
Plus, there was an issue with the face of the dam itself.
The one on the advert was smooth concrete, this is rough stone.
I didn't take that into account.
What I've got to do is steer between these rocks where they stick out from the face.
METALLIC GRINDING Oh! It's jerking.
I'm having to read the surface.
CLANG! Oh! CABLE GROANS This vertical off-roading gave me another problem.
Because the Land Rover is winching itself up on its own winch, the cable has to feed evenly onto the drum.
If it doesn't do that, everything gets ruined.
I couldn't see the drum, so, up top, the producers were spotting for me.
Straighten up, please, Richard.
Ah Oh Oh Because it's so slow I've got time to think about what would happen if I can't, I daren't.
I am now terrified.
I am now absolutely petrified.
Oh Past the halfway point it started to get even worse.
I can feel the front wheels now going very light because where it goes concave, where it bellies in like that my winch cable is pulling the front of the car off the ground.
Oh! And I can't tell you how horrible that feels.
Oh-ho! Stop, stop, stop.
I'm stopping, I'm stopping.
ENGINE SHUTS OFF ~ Honestly, mate, you've got about 20 seconds, I'm ~ BLEEP ~ scared, OK? And I mean it.
OK, take your mind off it, take your mind off it.
Um this THUMP! Ah! The water behind this dam can supply Birmingham with 79 million gallons a day.
~ Who gives a ~ BLEEP ~ right now? It's all right, we're good.
It's really vertical now.
Oh, God.
CABLE GROANS I can hear the lines I can actually hear the tension in that wire.
As I get to the top, the cable becomes less strong.
Partly because, as well as the weight of the Land Rover and me, it has to be carrying the weight of itself and the winch.
CABLE GROANS Oh, God, I'm depending so much on things made by other people.
Every single part now - the brake that stops the winch feeding out, the engine - everything.
In the face of unutterable terror I was, finally, nearing the top.
We have nearly done this, I've nearly cracked it.
Just a few inches, another few turns on the winch.
What a fantastic way to pay tribute to the car What? It was at this point the producers broke the bad news.
Because of where the winch cable was attached, the Land Rover wouldn't be able to climb over onto the flat dam top.
And this meant only one thing.
I'm going to have to go back down.
I'm going to have to winch it down the dam.
I really need a piss! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Thank you.
It was nothing.
It was nothing.
So you failed.
Well, I almost got to the top.
Yeah, but then you just came straight back down again.
I'm sorry, Hammond, if I said, "I'm going to drive to Bristol," and then got NEARLY to Bristol and came home again, that's NOT going to Bristol.
Look, the main thing is I gave the Land Rover Defender ~ a fitting sendoff.
~ Yeah, but they're working on a new Defender now and it looks EXACTLY the same as the old one.
So you said you'd drive to the top of a dam, which you didn't, to pay tribute to a car that you said was about to die, but it's not.
Yeah.
Well, that means you're a liar and you've completely wasted our time.
Yeah.
And on that bombshell, I'm afraid it's time to end.
Next week normal service is resumed.
James and I have a lot of crashes on purpose.
Hopefully we shall see you then.
Thank you for watching, good night!