Original subtitles

JEREMY CLARKSON: On today's show, it's all about challenges.

Which can get down a mountain the fastest,

a rally car or a bobsleigh?

Are modern showroom cars faster than racing cars from not that long ago?

And can a Formula 1 Renault get around our track in less than a minute?

Hello. We start tonight with the biggest challenge of them all,

because the skiing season has just begun.

So round about now, thousands of people will be thinking,

"What's the best way of getting to the Alps?"

Obviously, a car is cheaper and more practical, but a plane is faster.

Or is it?

You see, he reckoned that he could drive a car from our studio here, in Guildford,

to here, Verbier in Switzerland,

that's a car, faster than James and I could get there on a plane.

You see, the thing is, the precedent has been set,

because earlier in the year I drove an Aston Martin DB9,

uh, from here to Monte Carlo faster than James and Richard got there

on those new 200-mile an hour trains.

Yes, yes. But a plane will do 500 miles an hour.

Exactly, so, he and James accepted the challenge, and this is what happened.

Hello. It's 5:30 on a cold and frosty December morning.

Yes, that is perfectly simple, just like last time,

public transport for James and me.

So, we're using a combination of buses, coaches and trains to get to Heathrow,

then Airbus from Heathrow to Geneva and from Geneva to Verbier, a train.

And I don't care what he turns up in this time, he's not going to win.

Ah, hang on.

That sounds like 12 cylinders.

-Oh! -That's a Ferrari.

-It's a 612 Scaglietti. -That's the new one.

Morning, chaps.

-Morning. -Morning.

Jeremy, am I right in thinking 540 brake horsepower in one of those?

-Yes. -Yeah.

And it's freezing cold and everything's covered in ice.

Yes, but it doesn't matter. I've got the heater set just so. (CLICKS TONGUE)

Um, so I'll see you Verbier.

Um, I'll keep the cheese warm.

Okay, thank you. Whatever.

ALL: Bye.

-I think we'll see him in casualty, actually. -Mmm.

Heater sounds nice, though, doesn't it?

Yes! Yes, it does sound good.

(GRUNTS)

MAY: How do you carry these things? Is there a proper way of doing it?

My route couldn't be simpler, to be honest. It's Dover, SeaCat, Calais, Dijon,

left a bit, mountainy bit, Verbier.

Job done.

Cheese fondue, bed. And then the others arrive.

Well, that's an hour gone.

-How far have we come? -About a mile.

So that's one mile an hour, then?

-Yes. -Hmm.

Like the DB9 that I used in the race to Monte Carlo,

this is a big, six-litre, V12 GT car, a grand tourer.

It was designed and built to do exactly this sort of transcontinental thrash.

You just put petrol in the front

and the miles spew effortlessly out of the bag.

MAY: Meanwhile, we were at Guildford Station, getting our skis stuck.

Right, the A20. I've got half a mile to catch my boat.

Twenty-eight minutes to get to Dover, get through passport control,

get through Immigration, go on the boat.

HAMMOND: And while Jeremy was racing towards the SeaCat,

we were trying to find our coach to Heathrow.

Hi. Does this go to Heathrow?

We've just got to suffer this... Suffer this bit of the journey,

and then when we get on the plane, he's had it.

-Morning. -Good morning.

-How are you? -Well, thanks, how are you?

Good. Fine, thank you. Just going through security check?

-Yep. -Is this your vehicle?

Do you know what? It isn't. No.

CLARKSON: As dawn broke,

I had my first chance to see the £180,000, 612.

I must say, it's far from the prettiest Ferrari ever made.

But it does have four seats, it has a boot for skis

and its nose isn't so low that you scrape it off

on the ramps, getting onto the boat.

Things were going well.

While I was hurtling across the Channel,

the boys were still trundling along in the coach to Heathrow.

Well, there we are, 28,000 horsepower,

36 miles an hour. Thirty-six!

I'm going to have some bacon and eggs.

By 9:00 a.m., Richard and James had only got as far as the airport,

while on the other side of the Channel, I was already disembarking.

And now they had to face the biggest horror of the modern transport age...

Check-in.

-Ow! -Oh. Sorry. Sorry.

We're going to Geneva. Hammond and May.

-Can I have your passports, please? -Yes, hold on.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

What? Do you not get turned away with that?

Sorry, we're very childish. Thank you very much.

CLARKSON: But while our jetsetters were wasting precious minutes

with their check-in misery,

I was suffering another kind of torture.

(ENGINE BUZZING)

Something is really buzzing in this car.

And it gets worse if you go faster. What is that noise?

Stop buzzing!

That's going to drive me mad!

-(MOBILE PHONE RINGS) -HAMMOND: Hello!

-CLARKSON: Is your flight leaving on time? -Yes, it is.

(LOUD BUZZING OVER PHONE)

What? I can't hear you with all the rattling.

It is... It is leaving on...

God, that rattle is unbelievable! What is that noise?

-Hello? -(STATIC)

Hello?

Maybe he's crashed.

CLARKSON: No, I had not crashed.

I was thinking a little bit more about the car I was driving.

Coming down on the French autoroute in the Aston,

earlier in the year, I felt like a gentleman.

In this, I feel like a playboy.

That's the difference.

It's a playboy's car, this.

If I was a real playboy, of course, I'd have shot the dashboard by now.

HAMMOND: After piling our way through check-in and passport control,

we had to walk nine miles to Gate 432

and James, as ever, was refusing to run on television.

We actually do have to run this time because the gates shut

and they will go without us, 'cause it's an aeroplane.

Tell you what, though, it is awfully fast.

I mean, the Aston, right, that had 460 brake horsepower.

This has 540.

HAMMOND: (CHUCKLES) We actually have to run.

Naught to 60, four seconds.

Top speed, 199.

If I was allowed to max this thing,

I could be in Verbier in two hours.

Mind you, I was about to get a lesson in real speed

because, after a 90-minute check-in,

James and Richard were finally on their way,

and they were whittling into my lead

because in France, I'd covered just 100 miles.

Hundred miles isn't really far enough.

How much power did Jeremy reckon that big Fezza had?

540 brake horsepower.

MAY: 'Cause it does occur to me

that we've essentially got the whole Rolls-Royce engine each.

-Yeah. -Haven't we?

-Yeah. That's mine. That's yours over there. -Yeah.

Look, he's belting along the motorway with his awful CDs on.

Oh, I didn't tell you this. He's developed a terrible rattle.

What has, Jeremy?

Stop buzzing!

-Well, he says it's the car. Could be his hip. -Oh.

Don't tell me, it's at motorway cruising speed.

(LAUGHS) Do you know? It is!

(BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S PLAYING ON THE STEREO)

Now, at this point, I'd like to tell you about the noise made by this phenomenal car,

but the noise it's making at the moment is Breakfast At Tiffany's

because that's what I'm using to drown out the sound of the rattle.

(SONG CONTINUES)

There. Just had a look at the fuel gauge and it seems we need some, so...

I'm going to give it the best, 98, see if that stops it rattling.

(ALARM DINGS)

Um, hello, how fast are we going?

We're actually travelling at 550 miles an hour today.

Crikey! That's fast.

He's not doing that, even in a Ferrari.

Come on! Come on!

I wonder how much this aeroplane actually costs.

I've no idea.

(ALARM DINGS)

-Sorry to bother you again. -That's no problem.

-How much is this aeroplane worth? -£50 million.

-£50 million. -That's more than a Ferrari, for instance.

-That's quite a lot more. -Yes.

I've no backache, the engine's quiet, the ride's good.

Good GT car.

And I've got one filling station further than I did in the DB9, interestingly.

Mind you, it has got a bigger tank.

I wonder how high this is flying.

(ALARM DINGS)

If it weren't cloudy, we'd be able to see them screaming by.

When the aeroplane landed at Geneva Airport, I was way behind,

still well north of Dijon.

I was so far behind, in fact, that I figured it wouldn't make much difference

if I pulled over and tried to fix what I'd discovered was the cause of the buzz.

It was the wipers.

Right, let's see if my new gaffer-taped-up windscreen wipers

will stop the buzzing noise.

Here we go.

Out of auto.

No.

CLARKSON: Don't tell me you're already in Geneva.

We're already in Geneva, but, so far, our skis aren't.

Yes, they are. They've just come out of the little chute thing.

Sorry, I'll have to go.

See you tonight.

CLARKSON: Things were going well for them,

but they weren't going well for me.

Now I've got a big problem 'cause I've taped my wipers up and it's raining!

Oh! (LAUGHS)

Oh, sh...

-(BUZZING) -Yes, now, you see, that was a bad plan.

Here's a tip. If you've got a Ferrari 612, don't tape your wipers up

'cause...

you're going to break them.

HAMMOND: Meanwhile, we had only five minutes to catch our train connection.

And as ever...

MAY: We don't have to run.

-No, you see, we do. -No, we don't. It's five minutes away.

Running is faster than walking. It's just a fact.

Not really.

If I get on the train and you miss it, that's tough.

I'm about 250 miles north of Geneva,

so they're 250 miles ahead at this point.

Yes, I'm beginning to think that actually...

I can't really win this.

CLARKSON: And James and Richard were about to unleash the weapon

most feared by the car.

Swiss public transport! It is never ever late.

And then, to make matters worse...

CLARKSON ON THE PHONE: Hamster, just so you know, I'm in a contraflow.

Oh, that's poor. Where?

Ile de France. HAMMOND: Okay.

And it's now 2:00, five past two.

I'm probably two hours from Switzerland.

HAMMOND: Happy losing, and we'll talk to you later on.

He's had it.

CLARKSON: Beating a train in the Aston was easy.

That's 21st-century engineering up against a Victorian relic.

But to beat a plane, that was beginning to look like an impossibility,

even for a car as good as the 612.

It's funny, this morning when I got into this car,

I was tired, I didn't like the look of it very much,

thought it was a bit boring, then the rattle started,

but I'm starting to see and feel that Ferrari magic.

That sense of limitless power,

huge speed.

Last time he was here, he was going, "France is so good,

-"The police, they just want you to go faster." -Um, yeah.

(IN FRENCH ACCENT) "Monsieur, please carry on. You are famous Mr Clarkson!"

(SIREN WAILS)

Hammond, guess who I'm talking to!

(LAUGHS) He's talking to a policeman!

CLARKSON: I was fined £60, but more importantly, I lost 25 minutes.

The race really was beginning to look like it was lost.

Jeremy, I would calculate, is somewhere around here,

at the side of the road, talking to a gendarme.

Within a few hours' time, he'll be up here at a place called Le Bastille.

(BOTH LAUGHING)

Now, time for our second challenge.

And for this one, James and I had to head north.

This is Lillehammer in Norway, the setting for the 1994 Winter Olympics.

It's got one of the most formidable bobsleigh runs in the world.

A downhill course of twists and turns stretching for almost two kilometres.

Even so, a crack bobsleigh team can get down this run in just under a minute,

with the bobsleigh itself hitting 80 miles an hour.

That speed comes at a price for the passengers, though,

because each member of the bobsleigh team

is subjected to cornering forces of 5G.

That's more than an F1 driver suffers.

Honestly, to do this, you'd have to be brave, stupid

or just desperate to get on the television.

So this is where I'll be sitting, here in the middle.

And to make things even more arduous, we're gonna have a race.

MAY: Now, we've come to Lillehammer, because alongside the bobsleigh run,

we have this road.

They start in the same place,

they run down the hill, and they finish in the same place.

The road is almost exactly the same length as the bob run.

And like the bob run, it's slippery, dangerous and full of difficult corners.

It requires a special vehicle.

So that's what we've got.

It's a Mitsubishi Evo World Rally Car

with a 300 horsepower, turbo-charged engine, four-wheel drive,

and studded tyres.

So that's the challenge. Can the rally car beat the bobsleigh?

I happen to think it can, although Hammond tells me it definitely can't.

Now, this is my bobsleigh run, it starts here and wiggles all the way down here

and finishes there.

And this is the road, which is in green,

and it starts here and wiggles all the way up there,

but finishes in exactly the same place.

HAMMOND: Yes, but here's the point.

My bobsleigh can get from there,

all the way down to there, in less than a minute.

You've had it.

But, you see, all you've got to take you from there to there is gravity.

-Yes. -That's nothing.

Well, I've got 300 horsepower and a huge, huge turbocharger, and 420 spikes in each tyre

-and gravity to get down there. -Yes, but...

But my bobsleigh was custom-built for going on ice.

Your car has had to be sort of adapted with clever tyres and stuff.

-You're wearing tights. -I am.

I can't take lectures on physics from the man in tights.

-I am aware of the tights. -Dancing, yes.

-Physics, no. (LAUGHS) -(LAUGHS)

MAY: The truth is, though, the bob is going to be hard to beat,

which kind of counts me out for driving the car.

So instead, we've got Henning Solberg,

the Norwegian National Rally Champion.

One, two, three.

HAMMOND: The bobsleigh's chance of victory all depends on how good our start is.

That means intense preparation for me and the Norwegian Olympic bobsleigh team.

And while we practise running, the driver visualises the course in his head.

All this provided much merriment for the bone idle May.

-Are you warming up? -Yes.

I'm warming up as well.

HAMMOND: To be honest, I couldn't see the funny side of it

because I was really worried about letting the team down.

Any time you lose here, a second is multiplied by three at the bottom.

So, that would be three seconds.

And I was also worried about whether my body would cope.

Key thing is, as you go into the corners,

to hold your breath, to get as much breath in as you can

'cause that actually holds your body up.

It literally supports you when you're being subjected to G-forces in the corners.

Apparently in a couple of places down there, it hits six-and-a-half G.

Driver told me he's been doing this six years

and he's three centimetres shorter.

I can't afford to lose three centimetres.

HAMMOND: James was strapped in and I was ready to run.

Our race rally driver could hardly speak any English.

But that didn't stop James giving him a patronising British pep talk.

Righto, Henning, it's the reputation of internal combustion

resting on your shoulders over the next minute or so.

I was going to time the car with my trusty stopwatch.

And Hammond's bob would be timed by the course officials.

This was it.

ALL: Go.

(BUZZING)

The trees...you nutter!

HAMMOND: We're starting to turn.

Oh! That's a turn. That's a turn. 16 corners.

That's three of them done.

MAY: Two kilometres, on ice, in a minute.

Boy, has Henning got it all to do!

Oh! That hurts a lot! That's my head!

(BLEEP)

HAMMOND: The bob may have started slow,

but it was just getting faster and faster,

and these guys never use the brakes.

No! No, no, no!

HAMMOND: There's a complex coming up...

Oh, that's one! And there's another.

MAY: At mid-point, 1,000 metres in, it was anybody's guess.

Brake, use the brakes, man!

HAMMOND: Oh, put a sock in here! I'm banging my head.

Oh!

Oh, my head! Big breaths.

MAY: Henning was just awesome! You can't go this fast on ice.

(BLEEP)

HAMMOND: He hit the side. He's going to kill us.

(SCREAMING)

I don't want to die in tights!

59.68.

Did we win?

What did he do?

Strewth!

(GASPS)

(SCOFFS) I'm broken.

-What have you done it in? -59.68.

Go on... Come on, come on!

One minute, two seconds, 24.

Yes! We've won!

Guys! The boys!

-That was good. -Hope I didn't slow you up too much.

That was fantastic! We did it. That really was something.

(LAUGHING) Awesome! Yes!

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

I have to say...

I have to say, James, you looked petrified!

-Well, I was. -(ALL LAUGHING)

You did... I will say, though...

Of all the things I've ever done over the years, jet fighters and so on,

bobsleighing is easily the scariest.

-It really is. -Yeah, it's very frightening. It's painful, too.

Because you have to wear these funny trainers with spikes on so you can get grip the ice.

But the thing is, when the guy leaps in behind you,

they also stick in your leg, I noticed.

In fact, it was only my bones that stopped him going all the way through me. It hurts.

Plus, there's another thing, when I got in it to do my run in Innsbruck,

they said it will continue to go to the bottom, even if it turns over,

it'll just be on the head of the tallest person in it.

(ALL LAUGHING)

You would have been okay on that.

-You're a kind of human rollbar. -Yeah. Anyway,

we got to move on, we've got to meet our guest.

He's a man, except when he isn't.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Eddie Izzard!

(AUDIENCE CHEERING)

-How are you? -Fine. Well, just about.

-Now, you've got a pilot's licence. -I have a pilot's licence.

And so, I was just wondering, can you actually fly a Spitfire?

I think, yeah, I think if I got it now, if I was in The Great Escape

and I was James Garner,

and there was a Spitfire there,

(STUTTERS) and Donald Pleasence's saying, "Can you fly any of these?"

I'd say, "Yeah I could fly the Spitfire."

I could. I logically could, because I've learnt on a Piper,

which is like a quarter of the speed

of, uh, a Spitfire.

Spitfire's about 400 knots, 400 miles an hour or something like this.

But all the logic is there,

you know, all the stuff, all the basic equipment is there.

So I could do it, I'd just probably kill myself.

That'd be fantastic. I'll like to see you flying a Spitfire.

No, I do want to do this. I mean... They are... It's just a beautiful machine.

Is it the greatest machine the world has ever produced?

I don't know. Wouldn't...

I think different people would argue, different countries would...

The Focke-Wulf 109 or something.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -You know...

-You see, they're chuckling just because... -I know.

But when you get into it, some of the German machines were good, but that...

And the Hurricane shot down more enemy planes in the Battle of Britain.

See, this is the thing that interests me.

Because obviously, when I first saw you kicking around,

I assumed you'd be like cushions and wild flowers.

-And it turns out... -(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

It turns out that you do have a genuine love for engineering.

No, I'm an action transvestite. This is the thing.

(ALL LAUGHING)

I've said this. People give me flowers quite a lot.

I don't know what to do with flowers.

I could... I... They die on me. They just die.

And you're supposed to water them, and I can't work out why.

Uh, why don't they just do it them... Can't they just bugger off?

-(ALL LAUGHING) -I mean, I...

I've asked some of the audiences,

I said, "Look, I really don't want you to give me anything ever."

"But if you are going to give me something,

"give me those little things, you know, when you press down, they go ba-doing."

And I like those, you know, little...

Have you seen the little clockwork things that hop round your desk?

Yeah, that's what I like.

I'm a complete gadget freak. So I'm a complete boy, boy, girl, action-racer, boy...

Carrie-Anne Moss in The Matrix kind of area of gadgetry with the studs...

I'm with you. Is it a love of speed?

-No, I don't think I have a love of speed. Um... -You like guns?

Yeah, no, I have a gun thing, too, which I don't buy any

but I go to the funfest and shoot metal ducks.

(LAUGHING)

Who have done me no harm. I do understand why America has 200 million guns.

Um, that's 'cause obviously they get one gun and they say, "I'll put it in the drawer."

Then they say, "If a guy gets in...

"If a burglar gets in, I'll put two guns here."

And then, by the time they're in the bedroom, they've about 48 guns.

Now, um...

Despite the love of engineering and guns and so on, you drive a Mini.

-Mmm. -On purpose or...

(STUTTERS) I'm a huge fan of The Italian Job first time round.

The real Italian Job, as supposed to that other one.

-And, uh... -Which was the Los Angeles job?

Yeah the Los Angeles one which started with... (MUTTERS) "What?"

-(LAUGHS) -And, um...

"And why?" And, uh... Yeah, so the Mini Cooper.

I've loved the Mini Cooper since then.

So, I had the original Mini Cooper and then I had this Mini Cooper.

I just... I've actually tried to find a big, crazy car to buy.

Kind of thing, "I could do this now."

But I've not found a car that really grabs me, and I just love the Mini Cooper.

The thing is, if you love gadgets, there's not much...

-The satellite navigation in that is appalling. -Yeah.

It's a BMW one. It knows nothing.

(STUTTERS) I haven't tried the other ones. But why do you find it so appalling?

Have you tried my one in my car?

Well, I'm assuming it's the same.

I mean, they don't have a different girl in each different car,

otherwise you'd run out of girls, 'cause they sold thousands.

I think, they should have an option for swearing.

"Turn left, you dickhead." You know?

That would be nice for SatNav.

I find the SatNav is fine, except, if you...

I went to a place called Mountview Road,

-and it wasn't Mount View Road, it was Mountview Road. -Mmm-hmm.

Mountview Road, no gap. And we're looking for Mount View road.

The postcode didn't make sense. I hit another one.

And you have to check your destination.

Once you've put it in, you've got to check whether it's going to

otherwise you'll end up in Cyprus.

I have found.

Now the other thing I was reading the other day is that you like roundabouts?

No, well, the thing about roundabouts, I just think it's a very beautiful...

I meant a pure invention,

and as an invention, it is beautiful, it costs no money.

You paint that circle on. It doesn't have the cost of the traffic lights

and when we get there we know what to do.

And we can work it out. And if someone's coming from the opposite direction,

you know you can go straight away

because they're never going to cut you off.

It's such a beautiful thing, and the mini-roundabouts especially.

'Cause you can just drive over the middle if you want to or you can go round.

But, you know, it just doesn't cost money.

Are you sort of interested in traffic flow, then, is this something...

No, it bores the pants off me.

Good, right, that clears it up.

But I like the purity. I'm interested in the... Simple is pure.

Like they did a special, they did a film about the discovery, the DNA molecules,

and Crick and Watson.

-Mmm-hmm. -And Watson said, "The truth is pretty."

"The truth is pretty." But then Francis Bacon said,

"There is no beauty that hath not some strangeness about its proportion."

Well, he was named after bits of a pig.

(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)

He may have got that wrong, yes. He may have got that wrong.

Now, the lap.

-Yes. -The lap. How did it go out there?

Well, I

did not realise... Everyone's saying, "Was it fun? Was it fun?"

I didn't quite hit fun because my stomach...

I'm the most... If you had a list of the most throw-up-ability type,

I throw up on everything. I've thrown up on planes, trains...

Even trains, no one throws up on trains.

I threw up over an old lady in a train.

-So this was... -But you can't get car sick from the driver's seat.

I was yes... I got... Yes, I was making myself carsick.

Even though you were driving?

Yeah, I didn't realise it would flip out this much.

But the speeds we were going were so much higher than normal stuff,

-that the torque was... -But it's a Suzuki Liana.

-I know, but the torque was throwing me out. -Really?

Yeah. So, once I got the stomach thing,

I didn't give a (BLEEP) about anything.

I just wanted to get a lap in there and then get out, actually, to be honest.

Well, let's have a look how it went, shall we? Play the tape.

(TYRES SCREECHING)

IZZARD: Can I comment on this?

CLARKSON: You can comment whatever you like.

If you look at my face, my face is just, like,

"I'm gonna throw up at any point here."

So I've actually taken all emotion out of the face.

I'm not even bothered about looking scared any more or anything.

CLARKSON: You look like Kiefer Sutherland. Is that Jack Bauer going around?

IZZARD: No, he looks like me. CLARKSON: No, you're right, you just look plain ill there.

-(TYRES SCREECHING) -CLARKSON: That's pretty vigorous for a man...

IZZARD: I was going for it. CLARKSON: ...on the point of projectile vomiting.

IZZARD: Well, look at this, there's just no... CLARKSON: Yep.

I like this. This is the one where you brake like crazy.

CLARKSON: Yeah, did you manage to keep it between the lines?

Ummm... No... So you were pushing reasonably hard.

-Was I supposed to be between the lines there? -Yeah, it doesn't really make

a difference since there's no grass to run on to. That comes later.

Flat out through here? Did you go or did you have to lift off?

-I like that shot. -Yes, it's good.

CLARKSON: But were you going flat out? IZZARD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

CLARKSON: That's all right, then.

Second to last corner, everyone goes off here.

-(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) -CLARKSON: And indeed.

IZZARD: But that wasn't my last lap.

CLARKSON: No, it doesn't make any difference. We always take your fastest lap

out of the nine or ten you did.

Oh, that's how it works.

There you are across the line.

So, where do you reckon, then?

God, I don't know.

Faster than the blind man? The new bench mark.

-Maybe so. -Well, don't worry, you did do faster than that.

You did it... One minute,

52 seconds, ladies and gentlemen.

Which means...

The same time...

Did you ever think you'd see the day when you were between Jordan and Rick Parfitt?

No, I didn't think I'd see that day.

On level terms with both. Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a pleasure

having you here. Eddie Izzard!

Thanks, Eddie.

Now, the other day we were wondering

are the cars of today, the sort of cars you can buy in a showroom,

as fast as the racing cars of 20 or 30 years ago?

This is a classic case in point. This is the Ford Escort that took

Roger Clarke to the 1974 British Rally Championship.

And what we've got here is a perfectly normal Ford Focus RS.

Leather seats, hot and cold running, electric windows, the lot.

So, same driver, same track,

let's find out which is the fastest.

Away they go. And the Escort is half a second faster from naught to 60

'cause it's more powerful and a fifth of a tonne lighter.

But just look at the way it corners there!

Here the Focus comes into its own with its modern tyres and its computer skulduggery.

Hammerhead now, and the Focus's trick differential means it tracks neat and true.

While the Escort is over-steering wildly!

That is a live rear axle for you.

This is incredible, though,

a car you don't have to wear a helmet to drive,

as they go through the tyre wall, is miles ahead

of a car that won the British Rally Championship and now it's a tripod!

We're coming up to the finish and the £20,000 Focus has simply monstered

the priceless rally legend.

Right. So, that was a clear victory for the high street.

So, I think we should up the ante a bit.

Okay. Yes, fair enough. So what we've got here,

is one of the most famous racing cars of all time, the Ford GT40.

This won Le Mans four times

from 1966 to 1969.

And what we have here is the Noble M400, which is

one of our favourite current sports cars. And I don't think has ever won anything.

No, absolutely nothing at all.

So, what do we think?

What do we reckon is going to win this?

-Noble. -You reckon the Noble.

An interesting one, that, because it's got, what, 425 brake horsepower.

The Ford only has 390.

Anyone else? Any other thoughts?

MAN: GT40.

-You think... -Yeah, the GT40.

-But, you see... -It's lighter, isn't it?

Good point. It is a lot lighter.

Because, I mean, it looks like half of Detroit in the back,

but actually it doesn't weigh more than a Lotus Elise GT40.

That's much heavier. The Noble's a lot heavier.

So, let's have a show of hands. Who thinks it's the Noble?

Hands up for the power. Hands up for the racing lightness.

Ooh, I'd say the GT40's just edged it here.

Well, let's find out.

This is thumping, old-fashioned V8-power versus a modern V6 turbo,

and sheer size seems to have it, because the GT40 is already ahead.

But look...

The Noble's modern brakes mean The Stig can close the gap in the Benz.

Chicago now. Still looking evenly matched. But then once again,

the GT40 thunders its way out, is edging ahead.

Now they're coming into the Hammerhead.

Here, the Noble's modern tyres and downforce help to make up time,

but the Ford's not giving up that easily.

I mean, don't forget, despite the '60s technology,

the GT40 was built for one reason, to excel on the track.

And it's swallowing up our version of the Mulsanne Straight there.

As they go through the tyre wall

they are absolutely neck-and-neck.

Forty years separates these cars,

but in the final sequence of bends, there's nothing in it at all!

And there's the finish.

In fact, the stopwatch showed

that the GT40 won it by 0.6 of a second.

So...

So...

That is one win for the road cars and one win for the racers.

Right. So we're gonna have a decider, and from the historic stable,

we have this, the original Audi Quattro.

Now, this is the car that won the World Rally Championship in 1983,

and it kicked off that whole four-wheel drive revolution in rallying thing.

And this is one of the road-going monsters that it spawned,

this is the Mitsubishi Evo 8, the 340, okay?

Any thoughts, anyone?

Who thinks the Evo? Hands up.

And who thinks the Quattro?

That is about 50-50.

So, play the tape.

The figures suggest this will be a walkover.

The Audi has 20 more horsepower and is a third of a tonne lighter.

And to be honest, 1983 isn't that long ago.

Now, I know the Evo's a Pentium processor with wheels,

but it's hard to see how it can win this.

Although, that said, I have to say, through the Hammerhead, it is actually edging ahead.

The Audi is obviously suffering 'cause its engine is slung ahead of the front axle,

which causes massive under-steer,

or perhaps it's the weight of all those lights slowing it down.

Whatever the reason, it's the Evo with the carpets and the warranty

that's going to win this! I cannot believe it!

As they come into the last corner...

It's actually won!

(APPLAUSE)

I'm stunned.

The Evo won that by 1.5 seconds,

which means it's two to the showroom cars and only one to the racers.

I think that's remarkable.

It is astonishing because if you think about it, not that long ago,

people were travelling hundreds of miles to stand up in a wood, all night, in Wales

just to watch one of these go by at full chat.

And now, you can buy a road car which is just as fast.

Right. It's time to move on.

Now, if you've just joined us, this is really the ultimate race.

Because Jeremy is trying to drive one of these Ferraris, one like this,

from our studio here in Guildford

all the way down to the Lodge Hotel in Verbier, which is in Switzerland.

And he's trying to do that faster than James and I can get there on a plane.

Now, when we left the action, James and I were about here somewhere,

and Jeremy was around here,

about 250 miles behind us, and he'd just been stopped for speeding.

We were feeling pretty confident.

CLARKSON: We pick up the story an hour later,

with James and Richard on a train in the Alps,

and me off the motorway, in the hills north of Lake Lausanne.

So, now it stops being about power and starts being about handling,

and on that front it's very good.

Because the engine may be in the front but it's behind the front wheels,

so it's actually mid-engined.

And the gearbox is at the back for perfect weight distribution.

This should be a riot.

-Where are you? -He's catching up.

We're on our way towards...

Martigny.

HAMMOND: God, you are catching up!

Lay roads had been kind to Jeremy, and now we no longer had jet engine power.

He was starting to close the gap.

CLARKSON: I've got snow.

There is snow on the ground,

and I don't just love this car any more.

I wish you could be where I am now.

MAY: Which is better than where we were, on the platform at Martigny station

with an hour's wait, and then another train and a bus to catch.

An hour with the Saint Bernard Express!

(BOTH LAUGHING)

HAMMOND: Look at that! MAY: The dog train!

HAMMOND: That hour was really killing us, because while we were waiting for the train,

Jeremy was racking up the miles.

-Where are you? -North of Lake Lausanne.

You're now in Martigny, are you?

Yes, but we're going to be here for an hour.

Yeah, but you can spit and you can hit Verbier!

I know. But the next train that we've got

is (MUMBLES)... The Reverend W Awdry's stories.

-(JEREMY LAUGHING) -And then we've got a bus as well.

You've really caught up in the last hour.

You've more than halved the distance.

CLARKSON: At last, the Swiss border!

So, now I shall be leaving the EU

and automotively speaking, at any rate, entering the Dark Ages.

The trouble with Switzerland is that they have

no tolerance at all of speed

and cars and pollution.

If Steve McQueen had actually made that jump

on his bike in The Great Escape, into Switzerland,

they'd have arrested him for reckless driving.

This was going to be the final fill-up.

With the Ferrari averaging 15 miles to the gallon,

it would now be a non-stop thrash to Verbier.

Meanwhile Richard and James were boarding the Saint Bernard Express

for their last train journey, but I was seriously catching them up.

Well, this is just super-tense now, because

we've got another 10 minutes or so on this train to get to, it's on this map, Le Chable.

And then from there, how long, it's a...

Fifteen minutes on the bus.

And then it's a 10-minute walk.

-You do know we've got that walk at the end? -Yeah.

Walk.

-Now if you... -Unless I see him, then I will run on television.

CLARKSON: They're only 60 miles ahead of me now.

Only 60 miles ahead.

I've made up 140 miles.

And I haven't finished yet.

Jeremy is somewhere between probably just behind us and where we're going.

I mean, it's that close.

-I honestly believe I can hear the car. -I know.

You can hear that V12... (MIMICS ENGINE)

Finally, we were off the train.

Now, for the last leg, in a bus!

Ooh, it sounds good in a tunnel.

What am I doing? I'm in a Swiss tunnel!

I could go to prison for 30 years for being in third gear in a tunnel here.

-Where is it we're going? -Verbier.

Only 40 miles behind them!

HAMMOND: I've got it. I've done it.

God, this is exciting. This is exciting.

I've got the Alps, I've got Geneva behind me.

I've got bold tunnels, Grand Saint Bernard Pass.

It's all like a spy thriller.

And I'm in a race, in a Ferrari!

Okay, I'm now past Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline.

# Swiss time is running out

# We knew that we would lose the race #

Far from it, actually, because they had to get up 12 miles of mountain road in a bus.

And I was hunting them down in a Ferrari.

Switching to manual, and sport.

We're gonna need everything this car has got to give, and it's got a lot to give.

He's behind. I know he's behind us!

Ten minutes plus a little walk.

-I'm waiting to hear the V12 wailing. -I am, as well.

-We'll see a set of Ferrari headlamps, and it's all over! -Oh, c'mon.

Is it worth dying to beat James and Richard?

No.

Is it worth dying to prove trains are useless? Yes.

-I'm going to go and drive the bus. -No!

CLARKSON: This was awful.

I knew that somewhere in the darkness, they were just minutes ahead.

See, I don't know how far away Verbier is, that's my big problem.

Oh, my God. Traction control fighting the back end there.

Look down in the valley and any one of those could be him.

I'm sure I'd be able spot the front of that car even in the dark.

-I can't believe it's this close! -No, I can't believe it.

Come on. Let's see that bus.

This is the bus depot. C'mon.

Go, go, go!

God, come on... What? How many more towns must there be?

-Er, le lodge? -Lodge?

-Lodge. -Lodge.

MAY: I can't carry this bloody thing.

No, this is Verbier. I'm here!

HAMMOND: Hurry up! I've got your bag!

Oh, for God's sake, Swissers, get out the way!

Where is it?

Do you know where the lodge is?

Which way do I go?

We need to go to the top.

That's them. No!

That's them!

MAY: No!

You've got to be kidding!

Yes!

I can't believe that!

I can't believe this.

No one is gonna... I'm sorry, I'm not going to...

-Bye-bye! -Just saw the keys.

Permission to say "cock" for the second time.

I've even abandoned me luggage.

-Guys! -HAMMOND: Yeah, yeah.

MAY: What did I say? HAMMOND: I can't believe how...

No one...

-No one's gonna believe that. -No one will believe that was for real.

-I don't believe it. -After 11 hours. Eleven hours.

That was astonishing.

I said, "He'll just have time to pour himself a beer and look smug."

HAMMOND: By the hot tub.

-CLARKSON: I have to say... -That was spectacular.

Also, I tried to look smug, but it's bloody freezing!

(ALL LAUGHING)

So there we are,

the best integrated public transport system in the world,

allied to a plane that actually arrived at Geneva early,

was beaten by a car.

(APPLAUSE)

But do you know... Do you know what?

-James and I were happy to lose to a car, and what a car. -It is a car.

I also want to make it plain, that was for real.

I really did overtake them on Verbier high street.

-I couldn't believe it. -In this astonishing car.

I mean, obviously, my abiding memory of it

-is the windscreen wiper, here, which had a bent blade. -Right.

Caused by a mechanic leaning on it, and he's now sharing his bed at night

-with a horse's head. -That's fair. That's fair.

But once I'd tuned that out, it's an astonishing piece of kit.

Because on the motorway, it's really, really quiet, really comfortable,

then you get to the Alpine pass, them on their bus...

-(MIMICS A BUS) -It was awful!

And you're just (VROOMING) trying to catch them up.

It was fantastic.

It was a full-on, snarling Ferrari, at that. Brilliant thing. Brilliant.

It's difficult to know what to compare it with.

Because you can't compare it with the Aston Martin DB9

because this is a proper four-seater, really, whereas that isn't.

-Yeah, true. -So it's closer, if anything, to the Bentley Continental GT.

-You know, kinda big four-seater, two-door coupe. -Yeah. Yeah.

That's absolutely right. This is a lot more expensive than a Bentley.

£70,000 more than the Bentley, in fact.

It'll depreciate like a stone because all four-seat Ferraris do.

-They do. -And it's gonna be more brittle.

But that said, let me just say this to you,

Ryan Giggs,

Kieron Dyer,

Rio Ferdinand, they all don't have Ferraris,

they've all bought Bentleys, and for that reason alone, I'd buy one of these.

Yeah.

So, the Ferrari won the race to Verbier.

This year, Ferrari won the Formula 1 World Championship, again.

And when we look at our lap board,

we find that it's headed by a Ferrari!

We thought it'd be a good idea to teach them a lesson.

So, look what we've got down here.

Yes, it is a Renault Formula 1 car.

The thing is Renault called us up and they said,

they reckon this could get round our track,

not in a pedestrian one minute, 19 seconds.

They say they reckoned it could get round in under a minute.

This is the actual car that Fernando Alonso used in the last three races

of the 2004 F1 season.

But while it's ready to race,

unfortunately it's not ready to go.

You don't just turn the key in a car that churns out 1,500 brake horsepower per tonne.

A car that can go from 0-125 and then back to 0 again

in seven seconds.

In fact, you need a team of 16 highly qualified engineers just to get it going.

And then you need someone with nerves of steel to drive it.

Sadly, Alonso was busy.

But that's okay,

because we have just the man for the job.

Yes, this is Stig's birthday and Christmas present

all rolled into one.

So,

let's see what he can do.

(ENGINE HUMMING)

And he's off. No Grand Prix car can accelerate as fast as the Renault.

So much torque in that thing, and here's the proof.

In just six seconds, he's up to 150 miles an hour.

Right, through the first corner, he's keeping it at a steady 125.

Look at that grip!

Right, now, up to Chicago.

Here we go.

Ooh, traction control keeping the back end in check there

as he powers down now towards Hammerhead.

I've never seen those bumps in a road car before.

Now, they fitted the Monaco steering rack for this twisty bit.

Well, it's worked, no under-steer, no over-steer, just a bucket-load of power.

Now, he's kicking up spray now as he buries the throttle.

Already, he's up to 171.

Slow down a bit for the Follow-through.

Oh-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Look at that!

Final straight, he's faster still, 183 miles an hour

as he brakes for the second to last corner.

Over half the lap's been done at full throttle,

but can he really have got round in under the magical minute?

(APPLAUSE)

Come on!

Did he?

-Well, it was greasy out there and there were big puddles... -Yes.

-...which did slow him down a bit. -Yes.

The Stig did it...

-59 seconds. -HAMMOND: Yes!

(ALL CHEERING)

HAMMOND: It's just unbelievable.

The thing is, though, this is only for cars with ashtrays

and noses that you can get over speed bumps.

It's only for road cars, so I'm afraid,

-Richard, if you'd like to take that down. -I think it should stay.

(AUDIENCE BOOING)

I'll do it, then.

I'm afraid we can't have it, but there is some consolation.

Because you know earlier on, we were showing you

that today's road cars are as fast as racing cars from 20 years ago,

well, it stands to reason that in 20 years' time

you'll be able to go as fast as that on the A34.

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

We're back next week, Boxing Day, 8:30 o'clock.

But in the meantime, have a very happy Christmas.

Good night!