All language subtitles for Top Gear - S10E08.eng

Tonight, Compo takes me for
a spin in a car from his youth.

Richard tries to drive
a fast car without crashing.

And Lewis Hamilton faces
his toughest test yet,

the Suzuki Liana.

Thank you very much,
thank you. Thank you.

Hello and welcome to the BMW
M5, which is very expensive.

However, I know of a car which does all
the same sort of stuff for half the price,

so that's gotta be
worth a look.

Even though it is a bit...

...Australian.

Welcome, everyone,
to the VXR8.

Like the M5, it's a spacious
four-door, five-seater saloon car,

with much leather,
many buttons and a large boot.

Like the M5,
it'll bumble about all day,

quietly and comfortably.

And like the M5, it's capable,
when the mood takes you,

of being absolutely
and completely bonkers.

This could only have come from a country
that hadn't signed up to the Kyoto treaty.

For such a big,
comfortable car,

it's staggeringly easy
to drive very... Really fast.

It's got a six litre V8.

That's 414 horsepower.

0-60 in less than
five seconds.

Its top speed, if you take
the limiter off... Well, a 175.

And that's pretty quick.

And it's yours
for just £35,000.

Now, for that sort of money
what you'd normally be looking at

is a 3 litre BMW 5 Series,
or a 3.2 litre Audi A6,

or a 2.8 litre
Mercedes E-Class.

Now they're all very
nice cars, they really are.

But they're not really
in the same league

as the big V8.

They're all lost in my
6 litre shockwave!

In a simple drag race,
it completely trounces them.

And we see much the same thing
in the corners.

Out of the way, Germans!

Thank you.

This then delivers M5
power games for £30,000 less.

So what exactly are
you missing out on?

Well, first of all, the BMW
comes with a BMW badge.

That is worth its weight
in myrrh.

Whereas this is being sold
in Britain as a Vauxhall.

What's more, inside it's a bit
like a Currys own brand stereo.

And of course,
with such a big engine,

it's not what you'd call

economical.

And then there's the exterior.

With all its trinketry and price-drop TV
jewellery, it's not exactly a wallflower.

But the main
reason why this is

£30,000 cheaper
than an M5 is simple.

It's about 30,000 times
less complicated.

In an M5, there are seven
different settings for the gearbox.

There are two
for the differential.

You can even choose how much
power you want from the engine.

It's like
a Poggenpohl kitchen.

It's very hi tech,
very German, very nice.

This though, this is...

This is more like a Barbie.

Honestly, I'm surprised
you don't pour beer on it

when you want to turn it off.

You push the middle pedal
when you want it to slow down.

You turn this big circular thing in
front of you to make it go round corners.

And then you push
the pedal on the right

when you want it
to make more noise.

This car then, it's as dainty
as a hobnail boot,

as feminine
as a burst sausage.

And I've got to say...

I love it!

I'm sensing, just sensing from that,
that maybe you quite like it.

- Oh, it is. It's great fun. It really is.
- Would you have it over an M5?

No. And the problem is it looks so moronic.

It's Australian.

I know, with an American engine.

Anyway, we must now find out how fast this
colonial double-act goes round our track.

And that of course means handing
it over to our tame racing driver.

Some say... that when he slows down,
brake lights come on in his buttocks.

And that if he'd been the manager of the
England football squad last week,

he wouldn't have
been a feckless, ginger,

gum-chewing buffoon
who ruined it for all of us.

All we know is, he's called The Stig.

And we're off!
And it's been raining,

but then it would do because
it's England and it always rains!

37 degrees in Sydney today,
everyone's at the beach!

There we go, first corner, English fella'll
probably make a mess of it,

mine's The Stig, oh look,
he's completely messed that up!

Ah, proper Aussie music there.
Right, into Chicago,

right, he's hanging the arse out,
you don't wanna do that in England,

you never know what might happen.
Uh, Hammerhead, that's a shark

where I come from, not a bloody corner.
Wollabongalongamongalooee,

that's a proper name for a corner. Okay.

Right, the Follow-through, let's see this
limpwristed Pom open the taps.

Okay, second-to-last-corner, course if Alan
Jones was driving, we'd be done by now.

Yeah, proper driver, Jones, man's man,
really knew how to fry up a steak.

I saw him wrestle a goolie-goolie snake.
He had fists the size of prawns!

They're Australian, these two.

Couple of Australians turn up to hear
the time, and it is... are you ready?

- Beer O'Clock?
- Beer O'Clock? Yep, well you can get going

because it's 1:31.3, so it's right here,
look, I know it was wet,

Er... but it's still behind...
everything from Europe.

And now, The News. Now, you know those Club
Card points that you get in supermarkets

when you spend money?

Tesco's has announced this week that if
you spend those vouchers on a car

- you get four times the value of the points.
- Really? - They quadruple them.

Well that's quite good because I buy my
pies from Tesco's, you know those little

steak ones with the gravy
from the 'Finest' range with a really

- thick crusty topping?
- Well, it, it works that for every hundred

pounds you spend, you get
the equivalent of £4 back

in points towards your car.

- So how many pies a week do you eat?
- Two.

- And how much are they?
- £1.20.

£1.20, so for each one of those
£1.20s you get...

- So you could be on your way to a car, mate.
- Let's just work this one out.

You could have enough for a
Ford Fiesta diesel in 2403 years.

Wow! You're gonna have to eat more pies.
That's what you have to do; A lot more.

I can eat more pies than that hang on, I
can work out that um... hold on a minute.

Well, it's an ambition.

No, hang on a minute, because I could have
a new Ford Focus in a year...

- if I eat 570 pies a day.
- Wow! Well, there you go!

That would be-so in a year's time, "James,
James, your new car's here!"

"I can't get up! I don't feel so well."

Pies are not a good way to buy cars, just
in case you were wondering.

Now, you ready for this? The Americans
have announced their "Green" car of the

- year. - Oh good, it'll be a Toyota Prius.
- It isn't.

- Electric thing?
- It's a Prius Toyota. - No.

- It's going to be a Prius.
- No it isn't,

- I've got a photograph of it here, there you go.
- That's not a Prius!

- No, that's a 6-litre V8 Chevy Tahoe.
- That's a green car?

I'm absolutely not joking, uh, no it's a
hybrid they put a tiny weeny little

electric motor in it somewhere,
there you are, that's a hybrid.

And they've fallen for it.
Does 21 miles to the gallon.

- That's green.
- It is very green. Actually,

the funniest thing is the judges
for this, okay? Do you want to

hear the judges of the American green
car of the year? One of them was um...

- Jay Leno. - Oh he hates cars.
- Yes, apart from

his large collection of Ferraris and
Porsches, he hates them.

Carroll Shelby.
Oh, he really hates-yes.

No, Carroll Shelby was the man who put the
7L V8 in the AC Ace to create the Cobra and

spends his time now...?

- Supercharging Mustangs.
- He does, yes, he

puts superchargers on Mustangs.
And the other judge was um, he's called.

Jean-Michel Cousteau and he's
actually Jacques Cousteau's son.

- Is he?
- I'd love to have been in the-when they

were discussing it: "Shut up you goddamn
Frenchy cheese eating surrender monkey!"

Poor bloke when he walked in that room...
"This is going to be very exciting,

I'm a judge" and they were there drinking
petrol and supercharging their chair.

And Shelby'd be going: "I don't know what
a hybrid is it's like Country and Western?"

- Um... ooh now, you've got one.
- You know the.

- Ford Ka? It's been around for 11 years.
- Yeah.

- Has it? - Yeah.
- Really 11 years old?

It has and they've decided to mark that
anniversary with a special limited edition,

and here it is. It's uh,
it's called the "Two-Tone"

and obviously it is two-tone. You can
have... that's Blazer Blue or you can have.

Panther Black, teamed with
Moonstone Silver bumpers there.

But I think I know where they got that
idea from. It's actually an earlier Ford,

here it is, there you see?

No, because that's, that's I know, because
the bodywork is "Dagenham Hospital White",

and then that's Burnt Freesia Door there,
and this back door I think is from the.

"Autumn Mist" collection.

- That's an exciting special edition.
- Now there's a survey from Toyota out this

week, okay? And they say 72% of Europeans
rate health and well-being as being

important in a car. Well now,
that means what they're saying

- is 28% of Europeans like a car to make them feel ill.
- That doesn't seem.

"Oh I love my mondeo because every time I
start the engine it gives me scurvy, and

that's a good thing in my life!"

- "I chose Porsche because it brings on rectal prolapse..."
- And I like it!

Anyway, Toyota have come up with a car,
okay? They're calling it a "Healthy Living.

Car", and it's designed to make
you feel good, and here it is: - Oh God.

I wouldn't feel good in that,
I'd feel like a prat.

- To be honest. - What do you do, pedal it?
- No, no, no, it's

got a normal engine but they say, okay,
the steering wheel changes

colour depending on what mood you're in.
So if you get angry it goes red.

How does the steering
wheel know when you're angry?

Why do you want the steering wheel to
tell you're angry? You already know that

because you're frothing-

- You're cross!
- But it's quite a thing, you know

when you say to women "What's wrong?" and
they go nothing? Well there is because the

steering wheel...

Now uh, this here is the Honda
FCX Clarity, alright? Now, this has

ready? Collision mitigation braking.

- Brakes?
- Yes. But actually analyse what

collision mitigating, uh, mitigating
braking system means it doesn't mean

brakes. However, this is one of the most
important cars ever launched, it's

actually got a hydrogen fuel cell, so the
only thing that comes out of the back of

that, all that comes out is water. H2O.
That's it. It's completely zero emissions.

- Really astonishing.
- Hydrogen fuel cells are actually extremely clever, much

better than batteries because the uh, the
fuel cell stack in that develops a

- hundred kilowatts.
- It is and that's well, that would be

- enough for a house?
- Yeah. Well it would be a hundred

electric fires but in my house,
I mean even if you put lots of stuff on,

like the immersion heater, the
cooker, the telly, the central heating-

Your electric curlers.

- My gramophone.
- And the giant flashing illuminated neon

- picture of Freddie Mercury.
- All of that.

- So that would add up to what?
- Well, no more than 10.

No, exactly. And the point of
this car is that not only is it a proper

car, drives around like a normal car,
but if you could plug that into your

- house, well it would actually power a whole street.
- Easily.

- And only produce water.
- The only real problem is that

well the only thing that we haven't got
yet is a hydrogen filling station.

And the other thing of course is that
hy-storing hydrogen is tricky, but

they're working on ways to make it

so you can store it on bits of metal and
actually that brings me onto something.

Children, if you're watching,
um, school tomorrow. If you've got a

science lesson and the teacher says
"Today we're going to do storage of

hydrogen", pay attention because whoever

works that out is going to be
the richest person

- the world has ever seen. Because.
- Ever.

Honestly when as soon as they get the
infrastructure worked out, that's just it.

Yep, so if you're watching this in Saudi
Arabia...

- Time to break out your camel.
- It's back to carpets for you.

Right, that's the end of the news,
uh, so let's move it on.

Um, you see every week
we get a stack of letters.

And literally none of them
ever asks,

"What was the first car
ever to be laid out,

"in a way that we accept
as being normal now?"

Good! So, moving on...

No, no, no, no, actually
it's a very good question

that's never been
asked because...

You know, we have the
steering wheel in front of you.

You have the clutch on the
left, the brake in the middle,

the throttle pedal
on the right.

You got the gear stick there
and a hand brake down there.

- But what was the first car to be like that?
- Oh.

No, no, honestly,
James and I decided,

good idea to go down
to the Beaulieu Motor Museum.

And see if we could find the answer
to a question that no one is asking.

Because no one cares.

This is the very
first car ever made,

the Benz Patent Motorwagen
from 1896.

This is genesis.

And it's absolutely nothing
like the cars we know today.

For a start, it has this
tiller steering arrangement,

which is exactly the sort of
thing you'd find on a canal boat.

And it also only has
a single front wheel

so presumably if you're
a bit too vigorous with this,

the whole thing
could topple over.

Performance... Not great.

It has a one cylinder,
one litre engine

which gives
a top speed of nine.

And with a 1.5
litre fuel tank,

its range is only five miles.

Tricky when the petrol
station hadn't been invented,

but it did show the world that personal
motorised transportation was possible.

Three years later,
the British came up

with this, the Royal Enfield.

That's not the brake!

No!

Its controls were
hideously complicated,

but there were
some good points.

This had

twice the power of the Benz,
two horsepower,

but most important
of all, it had

four wheels.

So what they'd accidentally
designed here is the Quad bike.

One of the biggest problems
with these early cars is

getting them going
in the first place.

The starter motor
hasn't been invited yet.

There's no ignition key.
You have to use

the starting handle.

And the great thing about this
particular car, the De Dion Bouton,

uh, is that when you turn the
handle, it will break your wrist.

- You what?
- Seven members of staff

at the motor museum have
had their wrists broken by

this very car.

Well, we don't actually need
to drive it.

- We could just stand around and talk about it.
- No, no, no, no.

This is one of the very first
cars that sold in great numbers.

We have to know
what it was like.

You're gonna have
to get it going.

Having got it started,
we needed to get it moving

and for that, we had a copy
of the original handbook,

which had been translated
from French, because the car

was made in France,
into English.

Literally.

"For making the carriage
walking at the first speed,

"take back the drag of the wheel
backward crowbar of the right

"and take completely
and progressively back,

"the crowbar
of embrayage to you..."

"...hurl the mover
till his starting."

I can understand why this is better than
going around looking at a horse's bottom.

But how did anyone ever
figure out how it worked?

- If we've established that that's the gear lever...
- Yeah.

- ...that's the advance thing, the ignition.
- Yeah.

That's something important.

This was designed for someone
with three arms and one leg.

- It was.
- If you need to do a hill start,

- you have to steer it with your chest.
- Or your face.

It would be difficult.
How do I get it into top gear?

"For taking the second speed

"push rapidly up the crowbar
forward without brutality.

"When it is raised up again,
it gains all its strength."

- Yes! Good.
- Yes!

- Top gear!
- Now, how do I stop?

- What?
- Well, I need to... I'm going to have to stop eventually.

This road won't go on forever.

- "Hurl the..." No.
- Seriously.

- I don't know, James. I don't know.
- Find it.

- You're in charge of the instructions.
- They're in gibberish.

There's no point
in relying on this.

Try and work it out.
Embrayage, crowbar.

I brought them
as a joke for the viewer.

Oh, God, there's a...

"For making the carriage
completely stopped,

"when it goes
at 15 kilometres an hour,

"take abruptly the crowbar

- "of embrayage..."
- Right.

No, no, wait, wait
I haven't finished.

Well, you haven't got
very long! Come on.

"When you are
in first speed,

"push..." We aren't, are we?

James, we're going
to be killed!

I decided to use ingenuity.

I'm causing friction.

That's neutral.
I've got neutral.

It's my wind resistance.
Stop it!

- I don't know how to do it.
- Make it stop.

I don't...

Right.

So France hadn't got it right,
and nor had America.

This is the Stevens Derailleur,
which has eight clutches.

And what kind of dullard would
think that that was brilliant?

- That's brilliant!
- What's brilliant?

This gearbox. This is
a three-speed constant mesh,

- so those are constant mesh gears.
- Yep.

- And it has selector forks.
- Yep.

But it doesn't
have dog clutches.

- So that's like the brake band on an automatic gearbox.
- Yeah.

In a modern gearbox, one would
always be loose on its shaft,

either the input shaft
or the lay shaft.

That's 1903,
and that is basically what...

You might imagine
that the first car

to get everything
in the right order

was the first car
ever to be mass produced.

The Model T Ford.

By the time it went
out of production in 1927,

half the cars in the world
were Model Ts.

So you'd imagine that all the
cars that came along afterwards

would be laid out
in the same way.

Luckily, they weren't.

Honestly, I am glad
this didn't catch on, because

driving a Model T
is more complicated

than doing eye surgery.

It is almost as though
Henry Ford was being...

I don't know,
deliberately obtuse because

to make it move,

you have to up the revs
with the accelerator,

which is here on the
steering wheel. There.

Then you move the handbrake
to the middle

which somehow puts the car
in neutral,

and then depress
the left pedal...

Yeah.

The only problem is,
to maintain this speed

I have to keep my foot pressed
hard down on what feels like

a very,
very heavy clutch pedal,

and the pain in my thigh
is excruciating!

The only way around this
is to change into top gear.

Now to do that
we have to go faster,

push this lever, the handbrake
that isn't a handbrake,

all the way down,

then I can take my foot
off that pedal.

Now the speed shoots up,

whether you like it or not,
to about 40,

and 40 on wooden wheels in
a world with hardly any roads

is terrifying.

Jeremy and I were beginning
to believe we'd never find

the first car with what we'd
now call conventional controls.

But then we stumbled on this.

The Cadillac Type 53
from 1916.

Look! A handbrake and a gear
lever in the middle of the car,

and three pedals
in the right order.

And better still, no starting
handle, no broken wrists.

This was the first car
to come with one of these.

This may look as old fashioned

as all the other nonsense
from the early days of motoring.

But what we have
here is the nub,

the first properly
modern car.

The thing is,

that nobody knew
when this came along.

That they had actually hit on
what would become the template

for all cars in the future.

Exactly. This bright idea could
easily have been snuffed out

by the next bright idea.

No, but what made this
bright idea stick

was that a British chap
called Herbert Austin,

who I'm sure you know,
came along,

copied all the ideas and put
them on his car for the people,

which was, of course...

- The Seven.
- The Seven. Exactly.

This car cost just a £125, four
times less than the Cadillac.

What's more, it was built under
licence by BMW in Germany,

and copied too
by Datsun in Japan.

This car, then,
the little Austin Seven,

took Cadillac's bright idea,
showed it to the world,

and made it stick.

Ladies and gentlemen, Chris
Goffey and Tony Mason there.

No, no, thanks. Really, thanks, lads,
for wasting nine minutes of my life.

No, no, I'll tell you something
else really interesting.

Not with a kitchen knife sticking
through your neck, you won't.

- No, seriously.
During the war...

Oh, God, no,
not James May on the war!

Please. Isn't it time you put a
star in our reasonably priced car?

It is time we put a star
in the reasonably priced car.

My guest tonight once
sang about a semi by the sea.

And funnily enough, James May
once had a similar experience

when a dreadnought sailed by.

Anyway... Ladies and
gentlemen, James Blunt!

Yes!

- How are you?
- I'm very well.

You've taken two years
to get here. Have a seat.

Excellent.

I'm honoured that you should
come down, and thank you for that.

- Well, thanks, it's been a nice day out.
- Good.

Good. Um, because you're the first
guest we've ever had who can drive a tank.

Yeah. I think you'll see in a
minute I can't drive a car, though.

Yes, but you see,

your problem is, is your car
history is rubbish.

I mean, we have sometimes had guests on
who have just had appalling car histories,

but yours, I think you've
only owned, is it one car?

I'm afraid to say
on this programme

of all programmes, I owned

a Lada Riva.

And, uh, I haven't
finished, actually.

It was a Lada Riva SL1300,
SL's for "Slightly luxurious".

Yeah. And it was racing red, or
Ferrari red. Whichever you guys choose.

They weren't bad cars,
those Lada Rivas.

Yeah, I mean, actually
it did have bucket seats,

and I installed an enormous
great stereo in it,

which sadly was nicked
one day.

Which I think is actually
probably even more embarrassing

than owning a Lada,
is to nick the stereo.

And why have you never
replaced it with another car?

Presumably you can afford
one now.

Because I owned a motorbike
after that, Jeremy.

- Oh, did you?
- Yeah, a Moto Guzzi.

- I didn't know you were homosexual.
- Yes, absolutely.

Most of my songs
are about you!

Oh, God, no.

I've got all kinds of lyrics
going through my head now.

Which bit of
the army were you in?

I was in the Life Guards, which
was part of the Household Cavalry

so reconnaissance, and that's
why we had very small tanks.

Were they, like, diet tanks?

Yeah. A Scimitar, a main
battle tank is about 77 tonnes,

and mine was
about four tonnes.

Did you see

in the paper on Wednesday,
they're talking about,

now the EU is saying that
there's got to be

emissions legislation
for military vehicles.

- Did you see that?
- I have heard about this, yeah, we've...

- But, is it...
- We are going green in the army.

How can you worry about what the
pipe at the back, when the pipe at the

front has depleted

uranium coming
out of that one.

"Yeah, I know, but look..."

We're just trying to make war
a little bit safer, I think.

Yes.

Um, it's a good job really you aren't
in the army now, I have to say that.

Yeah. It's a pretty miserable
time, I think, to be in the army.

They're working
incredibly hard,

doing a really tough job, and
not under great circumstances.

No, I mean...
Yes, 'cause, you know,

the covenant is supposed
to exist between

us and them.

- Yeah.
- They all say it's gone.

'Cause I was talking
to one the other day,

a chap called Mark who's
had his leg blown off in Iraq,

and he came back
and all we gave him was MRSA.

Yeah.

You know, ' cause I don't
really think that's really fair.

No, I know you're a patron
for Help For Heroes.

- Yeah, I know you are too.
- I do the same thing and it's really just because

there aren't many
funds for the army, and, uh,

and particularly
for equipment,

but more so, even more
important for those who get

injured and maimed
when they come back.

Now, you were in the army skiing
team? So that's Cavalry skiing team?

Yes, so they sent me skiing for
about three months every single year.

It's not all, fun, fun, fun.

It's hard work.

Didn't they name
a chairlift after you?

I had a chairlift named
after me, yeah.

- Because you spent so much time?
- I had to crack a bottle

of champagne on it and say "I
name this chairlift James Blunt.

"God bless her
and all who ride me."

But, you did actually have to go
to Kosovo, didn't you? It wasn't all...

Yeah, in '99, during the war
there, the bombing campaign

and the peacekeeping
afterwards.

Was it very horrible?

Yeah, war's a pretty miserable
place, actually,

and so was the Albanians uh, the
Kosovan Albanians and the Serbs

- murdering each other.
- 'Cause you were the... Weren't you the first in?

Um, across the border, yeah. And the first
one to Pristina with my troop of soldiers.

- Really?
- Yeah.

The very first one in.
That's quite something.

And you had your guitar
on your tank?

I had my guitar strapped
to the outside.

It was a precious guitar
I wanted it on the inside.

But I was told by my superiors I
had to keep the soldiers on the inside.

Wasn't allowed to strap them
on the outside.

And you just made sweet music
in there.

Um, do you inhale helium
before you sing

or is that just how it
comes out?

I was fed it as a child.

- Fed helium.
- Yes.

I think actually if I sang
and inhaled helium

it would be beyond the human
ear's register, wouldn't it?

Only, only dogs would hear it.

Oh, oh, make it stop.

'Cause you do actually take
the mick out of your own songs

- at gigs, don't you?
- Well, have you heard them?

Now, let's just get this.
I'm confused by this.

Genuinely, okay? Your
first album sold 12 million.

Something like that. Although my
mother bought about a million of those.

So, I did have
a helping hand.

- And I've got a million.
- We have a warehouse

about the size of this.
Full of my albums.

And then the new one,
All the Lost Souls.

That is... Well, that is
flying out, isn't it?

So, why are you voted
number four

in the list of the 100 most
irritating things in Britain?

That really pisses
me off actually.

- I thought I'd at least do better than that.
- Exactly!

You did beat traffic wardens,

and you beat men
in flip-flops.

Well, I tell you, next year!

I'm going for the number one
or two spot.

Climb it up.

Um, you have packed
a lot into your life.

Obviously there's
the army stuff.

You had a pilot licence at 16.

- Do you still fly?
- I'm normally just at the back of the plane.

If you found yourself in a plane
with me, you should jump out!

Why did you go
and learn to fly?

- My dad's a helicopter pilot in the Army Air Corps.
- Oh, is he?

What did he fly? Lynxes?

Yeah, Lynx, and Gazelle Scout
before that.

Which they're still flying
now out in Iraq.

Yeah, exactly. In fact, my
brother-in-law who is here tonight

has got a Scout as well.

- He's got one, or he flies one?
- No, he's got a Scout.

He flies one and he's got one.

I found him on eBay.

What? You found your
brother-in-law on eBay?

Or the Scout on eBay?

No, no, what happened was

I found my sister,
who again is here tonight,

uh, crying in a flat because
she couldn't get to a funeral

in southern Ireland,

um, because the planes were on
strike, and the ferries were out of season.

Uh, obviously no trains to Cork in southern
Ireland. So I put my sister on eBay as.

"A damsel in distress needs a knight
in shining armour. What can you do?"

And this fool started bidding,
amongst others, and...

You put your sister on eBay?

Yeah. And in a way they...
He bid and bid amongst others

and he won and he had a helicopter, a
Scout, so he could fly her to the funeral.

And, uh, some six months ago
they got married.

- No way.
- Yeah.

You put your sister on eBay
and now she's married?

And I've a second sister
who will be online shortly.

Starting price £5.

This is what they do
in Thailand, isn't it?

That's fantastic. And then slightly
portly men in Barnsley buy them.

Yes, you must have met him!

Right. Now, come on, um,
your lap, how was it?

It was great fun. I don't think
I damaged the car too much.

- Were you frightened?
- No, I really enjoyed it.

'Cause you like speed.
I mean, bearing in mind

there's the bikes
and the skiing and all those.

No, really. I enjoyed going
fast in it. It was a great fun day.

Really had fun.
The Stig is great.

Uh, okay, now who'd
like to see the lap?

Yes! Okay, let's play
the tape. Here we go.

Good bit of axel tramp there, or
whatever it is in a front-wheel drive car.

Come on, you little!

Enthusiastic.

Up to the one hundreds.
Here's the yellow marker!

What yellow marker?
You're seeing things!

That's good.
That's very good, very neat.

And very neat again!

Looking worried.

Were you worried?

He's very worried!

Are you all right in there?

Oh, my God!

That's absolutely terrifying!

Did you look like
that in the tank?

No wonder you were first in.
Here we go now.

At the 50. No surrender!

Right.

Good, that's very nice.

There's a huge great jet
over there.

No! Concentrate on the track,
man, not the scenery!

Now, here we go. That was very quick
through there, second to last corner,

are we gonna get around that properly?
Yes, cutting in nicely into Gambon...

Here we go... What?

Nicely held! Very good, and
there we are across the line!

Yeah.

Here are the peeps who have
been round so far in the Lacetti.

Any idea where you think
you might have come?

Bearing in mind
it was jolly wet out there.

The only wet ones we have had,
which are the ones to matter,

are Jamie Oliver is wet, and
Philip Glennister did a wet one.

Well, yeah,
close to Jamie, if I'm lucky.

Okay. Well, there you are.
So you did it in

one minute...

...48.3 seconds.

Ladies and gentlemen, a
quick time! I'll put a wet on it.

A wet...

There he is, 48.3 there.

Are you pleased with that? I mean,
you should be. 'Cause that's a wet lap.

Yeah, just above Billie Piper.

- Who wouldn't want to be there?
- Yes!

It's been an absolute
pleasure having you here.

- Thank you.
- Super star. And I do like Back To Bedlam.

And I like the new album
as well. So thanks very much.

Ladies and gentlemen,
James Blunt!

Thank you.

And that was a good time!

Now, it's fair to say that I'm not
exactly a Formula 1 motor racing fan.

I was sitting in the office
the other day wondering aloud

why they're all paid so much just for
sitting down behind a steering wheel.

I may even have said out loud,
"How hard can it be?"

So someone decided
it might be a good idea

for me to go and find out.

This is the Renault R25.

As the car that won Fernando
Alonso a world championship.

It's one of the all time
F1 greats.

The R25 is also the last of the
breed from the monstrous V10 era,

when the cars were chucking
out close to a 1,000 horsepower.

Now, there's going to be
no Top Gear nonsense today.

I'm not going to race it against a
cheetah or a bat on a superbike.

My mission is simply
to get that

round a track.

Specifically, two laps around
Stowe Circuit at Silverstone.

More specifically, two laps
without stuffing a priceless.

World Championship winning
F1 car.

Now, to put all this
into context,

the fastest road car I've ever
driven is the Bugatti Veyron,

which has a power to weight
ratio of 530 horsepower per tonne.

But the power to weight ratio
of this

is 1,500 horsepower per tonne.

But it's not just
the numbers.

Nothing can prepare your mind,
your senses,

your body, your reaction times
for the assault of a Formula 1 car.

So, before the assault,
it was back to school.

My teacher would be race team
boss Jonathan Lewis,

and my first lesson would be in
one of his little formula Renault cars.

It's very simple, really.

But, it looks like a Formula 1 car to me,
only a bit smaller and not quite as fiddly.

Okay. Well, it is.
It is a baby Formula car.

As a Veyron veteran, I was
keen to show him what I could do!

Still, the Formula Renault only has
a piddly two-litre engine from a Clio.

So mastering it
should be easy.

Right. I'm going to try and
gas it a bit down the straight.

I've never let a complete novice
go out in one of our cars before.

The Formula Renault has only
one fifth the power of an F1 car,

and I now realised the size
of the mountain I had to climb.

First time I've ever experienced
what proper brakes are.

It just hits a wall!

And just as I was getting
used to this car,

I was shoved into
its bigger brother,

a World Series car with twice
the power of the Formula Renault.

Mother of God!

He's gone quiet.

And no wonder! The straight-line
speed I could cope with.

But in the corners, I just
couldn't think fast enough to react.

So quick!

Come on, Hammond,
just trust it.

It's just so...
There's so much to learn.

I can't drive fast enough to get the heat
in the brakes and then there's no brakes.

I've just grappled with what,

500 brake horsepower in a
500 kilo car. I'm halfway there.

I was summoned to look at the
readouts from my onboard telemetry.

You're riding the brake

and you're riding the
accelerator believe it or not.

- 'Cause I'm doing left-foot braking.
- Yeah.

And then the other thing is
that you're being quite severe

on one of the downshifts. And you
actually put eight and a half on the motor.

If I'd done what
I did on that lap

in a Formula 1 car,
what would have happened?

You'd have probably spun it
and wrecked the engine.

What's an engine rebuild
on a Formula 1 car?

Probably about 150,000,
200,000 or more.

I needed lots more time
in the World Series car,

but that wasn't going
to happen.

Because my muscles were struggling
to cope with the cornering forces.

My head is going to come off,
and I'm not joking.

His neck will go soon, so he
needs to drive the Formula 1.

Before I moved on,
Yoda gave me a pep talk.

Everything you experienced in the
World Series car is probably going to be

more than three times as much,
maybe more, in the Formula 1.

I was... My thinking
time, that was my problem.

You know, I had a bit of an off, it's because
I thought I'd left it too late to brake,

then I realised I hadn't,

but because I was thinking that,
the car was already round the corner.

- Yeah.
- And I was in the wrong gear in a span.

- Yeah.
- I can't think fast enough, more than anything else.

You're gonna have to really concentrate,
Richard, especially with that thing.

If you think that's hard, that's
going to be another level.

My fear wasn't
just about the speed.

It was about what I was going
to be entrusted with.

The more time you spend hanging
around with one of these things,

the more otherworldly
it becomes.

I mean, let's talk
about the money,

because we can all
understand that, right?

The engine, £170,000.

The gearbox casing,
with no gears in it, £60,000.

The wing, £20,000.

But those are
all the big bits.

It's still off this planet
when you get to

the little bits and pieces,
you've got on your car at home.

So the wheel nut,
there it is. 500 quid.

And then for the socket
to remove it, £1,000.

And look, the mirror. It's just
that, just that little thing. 800 quid.

And the steering wheel,
£30,000.

And it isn't
just the money, either.

This thing is not
just expensive,

it's quite incredibly
fragile and highly strung.

So the engine, the tolerances
in here are so fine that

when it's cold it's
effectively seized solid.

You can't start it cold.
It has to be heated up.

And they do that
by constantly pumping

warm water round it when
it's in the pits, at 80 degrees.

You can't put
cold oil in, either.

It has to be
warm and fed intravenously.

It's like it's on
a life-support machine.

That's snug.

If you're ten, I'm doing this on
your behalf. You're in here with me.

So now I've got control
of the throttle.

That's me. Dear God, that's
me revving a Formula 1 engine.

The eyes of the whole
F1 team were upon me.

This was it.

Revs.

It had taken me
a minute to do 40 feet.

Why are we going? Are we going
all the way back in? Is it all off?

Here's the problem
with this stalling.

I know it's very funny and
everything, but the car has a system.

Because if you stall in
F1 it's a disaster,

so as you're setting off,

if it thinks you haven't got enough
power it just cuts the clutch in again,

and you just look an idiot.

- Eight.
- Eight anti-stalls?

That's a record, then, innit?

After the team had laughed
at me and warmed

the tyres to make
them more grippy,

they sent me on my way.

Oh, God. It feels totally different
to the other car. Totally different.

Turning left. My God,
I'm in a Formula 1 car.

I'm going to try the
throttle and see...

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

Holy Mother!

There's no temperature
in the brakes.

In the half a lap I'd managed,
the car had made a big impression.

It's absolutely the most
glorious machine in the world.

Wait till you
get into second.

I'm going as fast
as I feel I can,

and it's not fast enough
to keep heating the tyres,

which means I've got no grip,
let alone no downforce.

If I go a bit faster
than that,

that means there'll still be no
heat in the tyres and no downforce,

and I'm going even faster
and I will crash.

The only way from where
I am now is a lot faster.

Then I'll have heat in the
tyres and grip, and I won't crash.

And to make things worse, the man with
my telemetry was hardly a bag of laughs.

There's a big gap between
when you're lifting off and braking.

So you should be coming
straight off the accelerator

and going straight onto
the brakes. Straight away.

- All right.
- There's no need to have that big gap.

When you say a big gap,
how big a gap is it?

- Half a second, between you lifting off...
- It's not massive, is it?

Before you go on the brakes.
It should be straight away.

He was right, though. If I was going to do
two laps in this thing, I had to dig deep.

I've got to think
about everything I've learned.

Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

That's unbelievable.

There's so much. It's...
It's just going mental!

There's no temperature in the
brakes, they feel like they're not working.

Oh, this is... like a dream.

I'd done a lap. Just one more.

Turning in.
Oh, it's beautiful!

I suspect the chief mechanic
had seen better,

but as far as I was concerned,
driving God!

And the most scary thing
in the whole world!

The last corner is coming up!

I'm braking. We're
turning left, I'm in second.

I'm going to nail
it to the line.

God, I've done it!

I've done it! I've done it!

To mark the occasion, the technicians
let the engine play its party piece.

Yes!

I did it!

Yeah.

- James.
- Oh, yeah.

I happen to know... No,
no, really, I happen to know

that after a while when you'd
been in the Formula 1 car,

they had to pull it in to
reheat the tyres,

because he was driving so
slowly they were cooling down.

That did happen, but I experienced
full throttle in a Formula 1 car.

- Give him his due, he did use full throttle...
- Yeah.

...for 0.2 seconds.

Uh... Anyway, it's now time
to meet another guest,

and this one can drive a Formula 1
car, even though he's only eight years old.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Lewis Hamilton!

Yes! Hey, how are you?

- Good to see you.
- Great to see you. Have a seat.

- He's here.
He has come among us.

This is what I think you
can call a friendly audience.

It is. Thank you very much
for the warm welcome.

- You don't have to worry...
- But it is cold in here though.

- It is cold in here.
- I'm surprised.

I know you guys make a lot of money.
Couldn't you afford a heater or something?

No. Because we
have all the money.

Anyway, I want to start really by offering,
I guess all of us will do the same,

- big congratulations for an astonishing first year.
- Thank you.

- Thank you very much.
- I have to start with that.

Because that's
genuinely amazing.

- Are you as amazed as we all are I suppose?
- I am, absolutely.

Because, who would have
thought? I'm just your average guy.

I just got an amazing
opportunity to come to Formula 1,

and I managed to just lose the
championship right at the end.

But still,
it was an amazing year.

So when you arrived in
Formula 1, the beginning,

- it was Australia, wasn't it, the first race?
- Yeah.

- Are you expected to behave like a new boy? You know...
- Yeah, I think so.

I think for sure,
everyone expects,

"This is a new kid, he
doesn't know what he's doing,

"and, you know, he's going
to be a breeze to pass."

- That wasn't the case.
- Well, it wasn't.

Because the first race,
you overtook Eyebrow Man.

Alonso.

And the second one, you put one on
Massa, didn't you? The second race?

I think it was...
Massa and Kimi.

- Was Kimi drunk?
- I don't know. I should have asked him actually.

Because he was, he was really
on the left, this was Malaysia.

And he was just on the left
and probably

didn't imagine I would
out-brake him up the inside. But...

- Singing Sham 69 songs.
- Yeah.

♪ We're going down the pub ♪

- Hurry up, Harry.
Come on, oi, oi!

"Who was that?"

"That's that new boy
that's gone past."

Um... We've just been
watching Richard Hammond

making a complete clot of
himself in a Formula 1 car.

Are these things
hard to drive?

They are.
They're very, very hard.

When you're at high speed, when
you're doing 150, 180 miles an hour,

and you're through a corner
and you hit a bump,

you try to correct it and the
thing will shoot you off, so...

Are you fearless?
'Cause you've already said,

"If you're going to die
on a track, so be it,"

kind of attitude.

Well, I don't think...

Well, I'm not looking to waste
my life, but you know,

I've never had the problem
of being scared, you know.

You never, ever think, "What
if a wheel comes off now?"

- No, I've had that problem this year a couple of times.
- Well, quite!

It is actually quite exciting when you're
flying, you know, headfirst into a barrier.

The initial part. The initial
part is actually quite...

No, it is. Especially when you
hit the gravel trap

and you get some air as well,
you know, it's pretty cool.

But then you see it coming
and you're like, "It's going to hurt."

You do actually at the moment
think it's going to hurt?

I had a really good one this year at
the beginning of the season. And this car,

the team had worked very hard to get
two brand-new cars out, for the first test.

And I shunted it at 180mph
backwards into a wall.

And I remember going over
the gravel backwards, thinking,

"Okay, this is gonna..."
and just bracing myself,

and I put my head back and it was
actually quite a nice shunt. It was...

Why don't you just watch
Die Hard 4? That's exciting.

So, who do you want to be your teammate next
year? I mean somebody useless, presumably.

- You want a job?
- No, I can't fit in.

It'd be embarrassing.
That first race,

you'd be like, "Oh, the fat
bloke's gonna be useless,"

and it would be just the same, history
would repeat, I'd come flying past you.

- Yeah.
- Screaming.

But do you want someone... Everybody
presumably wants somebody crap?

No. Honestly, having someone this year
that could push me all the way was wicked.

- You know, and I learned so much from...
- Fernando?

- He's a bloody good driver, I tell you.
- Yeah? I could have him.

I did once,
on the Oxford ring road.

Honestly, he was doing,
like, 80. I came past, about 85.

No, 65... I was doing 70.

That hasn't worked,
has it? No.

With your driving now... Your
dad's been very much a part of the

build-up of your whole career,
I mean, he's here now.

Does he still tell you how to drive, like all
dads do, if you're driving along with him?

Yeah, if we're on the road,
something like that, you know,

he truly believes
he's a better driver than me,

and that if he had been given the opportunity,
he would be in Formula 1 right now.

So what have you got, a Mercedes?
Have you got one of those CLs?

No. You know what,
I drive a GL500.

- Sorry, a GL420.
- Why didn't you get the 5? What?

It's a diesel.

- It's... It's a pimp wagon, you know.
- It's the fuel of Satan, man!

You can fit 24-inch rims on it,
and just lean back and drive, man.

That's all you need
on the road.

What are you saying
about yourself?

Now, there's one thing that
we've noticed. Martin Brundle...

We've noticed that every time you don't do
so well in a race Brundle has talked to you.

- Talked to me. Yeah.
- Have you noticed that?

- I have.
- I think he's bitter.

- Yeah.
- I think he's undoing things on your car.

I believe that's what's
going on. Hit him.

No. I mean...

Who'd win a fist fight,
of all the British drivers?

Well, I used to do boxing. I
used to do karate as well, so...

- Oh, you're a black belt, aren't you?
- Yeah.

I'm more into defending
myself, so...

You wouldn't want to hit
Coulthard, with that...

You'd break your wrist. Probably
break your hand, wouldn't you?

- And I know Jenson doesn't like to...
- And there's stubble, as well.

And... Oh, you know when
you look at a Formula 1 car,

obviously every gram that
you can save, you save.

- I mean, there is just no excess fat on it.
- Yeah.

How come Jenson Button's
allowed to have a beard?

No, but seriously,
'cause that's got to weigh...

All the effort the designer makes and
then he turns up with that face fungus.

I'd tell him to have a... Well,
you haven't started shaving yet,

so you won't know.

- I've got a little bit growing.
- Really?

Have you got pubes yet?

It happens. No honestly. No, I
wanna say, they grow. It's ugly.

Um, anyway, obviously, we
now have to arrive at this point.

Yeah.

These are the Formula 1 people
who have been here before.

Obviously, The Stig heads
the board, with 1.44.4.

Mansell,
Jenson Button, "Dill".

And then Mark Webber.

Now Mark Webber was the only
one who came here when it was wet,

and I believe
it's wet out there.

It's very slippery out there, and
you said someone came along and

put some oil on the track.
Was it, was it Mark?

Well, seriously, earlier today
we had the Vauxhall VXR8

- going round, which is Australian.
- Yeah.

And the only person you're really
racing is Mark Webber, who is Australian.

Now, I'm not suggesting he came
down and undid the diff on the Vauxhall,

but it was spewing oil all over the track,
so you've got oil and water out there.

So, really, wet, that's the
time you're aiming for, is 1.47.1

I'm actually a bit nervous
about this, 'cause

I had some fun
out there actually.

But I'm not here to compete.
Let's see what goes on.

- Yeah, right!
- Honestly, I'm here to have fun.

- Who'd like to see the lap?
- Yeah!

Play the tape. Here we go.

Oh, that's an
aggressive start.

Wheel spin into second gear.

Come on. Let's get going.

Now, let's have a look. Were
you using The Stig's line or...

No, that's where The Stig says it
should go. All the other F1 drivers

do it different
and go out wide.

That wasn't too bad.
I'd give it eight out of ten.

- Right, now, into Chicago.
- Oh, a bit sideways.

You're getting sideways on the way in, that
was very nice, and super-tight round there.

- Now, what are you...
- Come on, man!

Fifty six miles an hour.
What the...

Fifty six is quick. Now, this
is where everyone gets, oh...

Looks quite slow
and tidy through there.

I was expecting more
flamboyance. Now, here we go.

Look at the grip, this thing will
put Formula 1 cars to shame.

It won't. It won't,
it won't, it won't.

There we are across... Ooh, you've gone
for the slippery inside bit there. And...

Are you taking this seriously?

I've never seen anyone so
lackadaisical about...

Whoa, that was
lackadaisical but sideways.

Coming up to Gambon now,
and that's pretty, pretty flamboyant.

And there we are!

Across the line.

So...

- Quicker or slower?
- What do you think?

- Quicker!
- Mark's a quick guy.

Okay, you did it...

Not competitive!

One minute...

And bearing in mind this is on
a track covered in water and oil.

- 44.7.
- No!

Unbelievable. There.

And that's wet and oily.
How did you do that?

Seriously, I have to know.

I have to know, because
everybody out there, including,

I have to say, even The Stig,

has to know,
how did you do that?

- I don't know.
- Because...

- No, because he's done a 44.4...
- That's my time.

And, let's be honest, he knows
this place like the back of his...

He hasn't got hands, but you
know what I mean.

He knows this place
extremely well, okay?

You come down on a wet,
oily track and do a 44.7.

And you weren't even... We saw
you, whoo-whoo-whoo, singing.

- The car's good, you know.
- The car's crap, man! You know that.

Do you think
you could go faster than that?

Are you going to invite me
back to do it on a dry day?

I would absolutely love it if
you'd come. Everybody would.

- I'd love to.
- It's just been such a pleasure.

I'm rooting for you next year. I dare say
everybody here is gonna be rooting for you.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Lewis Hamilton!

Amazing.

Amazing. Astonishing.

And that, sadly, is all we've got time
for. We have to end the show. Good night.

- No, no, no, there's more on car controls.
- Oh, God.

No, honestly, okay? Earlier
on, we looked at the past and

now it's time to look
at the future.

- Really?
- No, because,

BMW called us up and they
said they've built a car

that doesn't need
any controls at all.

- So how does it work?
- Well, they say they'd bring it to our track

and then they'd show it round, and
then it would use really clever satnav

to work out where it was, so it
could remember all the corners.

- Really?
- Yeah, exactly.

Really. I mean,
I had to go and have a look.

This is the most important
car ever

in the whole of
automotive history. Probably.

It's a four-door BMW 330 Saloon
and what I'm going to do now

is take it for a spin.

BMW say that because this car
has now learned our track,

it can actually do a full-bore,
smoking, pedal-to-the metal lap.

The only thing is, they say,
"Look, if you're going to do that,

"would you mind sitting
behind the wheel

"just in case something
goes wrong?"

Hmm. In case something
goes wrong...

I can't believe I'm going
to do this. I can't believe it.

Right.

My foot is on the brake.

I'm now going to push this little
button on the steering wheel here,

and it will set off at,
um, race speed.

Here we go.

Now... Now, you see,
that's uncanny.

It's revving up to 7,000rpm,
changing gear.

It's turned right. It's coming to the first
corner. Brake, please. Brake, brake, brake!

Brake! Brake!

It... It is!
And I can't believe this!

Coming up to the tyres at 100kph, that's
62, as we brake to turn into Chicago.

As we steam towards the
Hammerhead now,

100mph, and it's
gonna go hard on the brakes.

It has! There it is. I'm not doing that.
My foot is still nowhere near the pedals.

It's turning in.

Imagine if the
British had built this.

Ah, well, we didn't get it quite
right, that's what happened there.

We just missed that little
bit out there.

Is it going to lift for the
follow-through? We're now up to 130kph.

140. Apparently, you can even
put this on an M3

if you really want
to frighten yourself.

To death!

Coming up to the tyres,
here we go. 120, 130.

This is 95 miles an hour
through the tyres. Bang on!

Please don't get it wrong. Please don't
get it wrong. Please don't get it wrong.

And it's just changed
up to fourth.

Brake, brake, brake, brake, brake!
Second to last corner! Come on, brake!

Stig, you are sacked.

You are so sacked!
It's unbelievable!

Now...

Now, how do I stop it? Um...

I forgot to ask the man how
I stop it.

It's, um...

I'm going to be out here
for the rest of my life!

How much petrol's it got in
it? Three quarters of a tank.

- And er... he's still out there.
- Not sure we're ever gonna get him back.

- Not sure we really wanna get him back.
- But anyway, next week, the three of us

take part in our first ever motor race.
And a 24 hour one at that!

- And I only get lost once!
- Yeah. And I crashed. Again.

And on that bombshell,
it's time to end the show.

Er, next week we're on at 9 o'clock for
reasons we don't quite understand.

So, see you then.

Subtitles modified from MTOD transcript Ripped by GLUE
of QxR Edited/corrected for TGCC v2 by AlexGRFan97.

I'm bored now!